Should numbers be written in numerals or words?
When writing numbers, should we use numerals (“5,000”) or words (“five thousand”)? I’m particularly interested in how easy each is to read and interpret, and whether it’s an important consideration for dyslexic users.
Intuitive colour pickers for non-expert users?
Does anyone have examples of favourite colour pickers (as UI elements, not dedicated color-picking apps or sites) for common, ‘everyday’ colours – not for RGB or HSL values?
I find traditional colour wheels really unintuitiv…
How to gauge whether customers would use an advanced feature
I am working on a new design for bank reconciliation in a piece of accounting software. We have identified our users’ existing workflows and problems with our current design from an earlier round of customer interviews.
A co…
How to gauge whether customers would use an advanced feature
I am working on a new design for bank reconciliation in a piece of accounting software. We have identified our users’ existing workflows and problems with our current design from an earlier round of customer interviews.
A co…
Shouldn’t UX be Lean and Agile inherently?
People describe different types of UX such as Agile UX and Lean UX. Looking at the Agile manifesto and Lean methodology, it would seem to me that a successful implementation of UX processes would require a flexible and effici…
Shouldn’t UX be Lean and Agile inherently?
People describe different types of UX such as Agile UX and Lean UX. Looking at the Agile manifesto and Lean methodology, it would seem to me that a successful implementation of UX processes would require a flexible and effici…
Is pop up always bad?
I am involved in a redesign project (web app) where existing system throws quite frequent, random pop ups. These pop ups are used to gather information and also to display information and confirmation. Considering just to ent…
Linking back to previous webpage?
Currently the company I work for separates their company corporate website and their careers page. What this means is if you go to the parent site and click on the link to see career opportunities, you go to a completely diff…
What is the most familiar wording of linking to a PDF file?
For certain industries and user-bases, it can make sense to include a link to a PDF version of a HTML web page — so that visitors can either view or download it.
From a recognizability and familiarity perspective, what should the link text say when leading to a PDF?
Brainstormed phrases and words to use
In my case, I would accompany it with a recognizable icon such as: 
A few text variations that I came up with:
But there are likely many more potentially good options.
Variations of those phrases
All of the above could work without “PDF”, for example:
Also, they can feature a preposition or conjunction like “as” or “in”, for example:
- View in PDF
- Open as PDF
- etc.
That can be extended with natural language, for example:
- View page as a PDF
- Download this page as a PDF file
- Browse this page in the PDF format
- Click here to save this page as a PDF file
- etc.
Given all the possibilities, what is the best practice considering user-behaviour or user-research?
Considering people on different devices
To find the “best” term, I think it is important to suit people:
- with different browser defaults (whether the file will be downloaded or opened in a new tab/window),
- on various devices (such as PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones,
e-readers, etc.), - and using certain operating systems (e.g. Mac OS X arguably handles PDFs
much better than Windows, which tends to crash PCs).
Without any tangible data to use to make a decision here — I am unsure how to proceed.
What do industry leaders do?
Have the practices of what “big players” and influencers (creators of various platforms for blogs, forums, frameworks, even operating systems, etc.) do when linking to PDFs been quantified or qualified?
It may also be worth including the file-size or file-name, but that is covered elsewhere.
How to explain to my client the difference between Front End and Back End?
I’m currently managing a project to bring a medium-sized shop into the online world for the first time.
The very non-technical shop owner is failing to understand what “front-end” and “back-end” means, and I was wondering i…