What is this side menu called that can be found in many multi-touch apps, and where does it originate from?
It can be found for example in the YouTube and Facebook app.
Should error messages apologize?
We are having a discussion on our team about an error message that says “Sorry, you do not have permission to access this feature. Please contact your administrator for assistance.”
Is it appropriate to use language of “apo…
Is domain name important for user experience?
Is it important for the domain of a website to be chosen so that it is simple to type?
For example, consider delicious-dot-ly (delicious.ly).
Would it be fair to say that the difficulty of typing this domain name leads to a …
Is domain name important for user experience?
Is it important for the domain of a website to be chosen so that it is simple to type?
For example, consider delicious-dot-ly (delicious.ly).
Would it be fair to say that the difficulty of typing this domain name leads to a …
Showing/Hiding vs.Enable/Disabling form fields
I would like to know the benefits and drawbacks regarding to form design of “dependent fields”. For example, in my form I have a Marital Status field, and depending on it’s value, I need to know the partner document number an…
Should we ask for name on card even though it’s not required for credit card payments?
The name on card is not used when processing credit card payments. Paypal does not ask the user to enter the name on card when saving a card to the “wallet”, while Amazon.com does.
The benefit of asking for it is that the us…
Should we ask for name on card even though it’s not required for credit card payments?
The name on card is not used when processing credit card payments. Paypal does not ask the user to enter the name on card when saving a card to the “wallet”, while Amazon.com does.
The benefit of asking for it is that the us…
How could Kindle User Experience be improved?
I got a Kindle today and I would like it a lot better if I could read math papers on it without the equations coming out all funny. Some of my PDFs look perfectly fine on a computer but symbols go missing when I transfer them to a Kindle. This makes them nearly unreadable because it changes the meaning of the equations.
I understand that this is a difficult problem and it’s probably low on your priority list, but seriously, if you fixed this my Kindle experience would be infinitely better. Thanks.
Why is Google’s "I’m Feeling Lucky" button still next to the search bar?
I’m sure that Google must put a lot of thought into the display of its homepage. With such a minimalistic design, every element matters.
So what’s up with the “I’m feeling lucky” button? Why is it right next to the searc…
What are some of the great user experience “success stories”?
I don’t know if this is the type of UX success story you’re looking for, but there was a highly publicized case study of “The $300 Million Button” at Amazon.com (it’s also included in Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks).
Basically, there was an unknown conversion bottleneck in the Amazon shopping process:
- User picks out the stuff they want to buy and adds them to their shopping cart
- User clicks “checkout” to presumably pay for the purchases
- A form pops up, as it does on many e-commerce sites, that asks the user to Log In or Register.
This simple form caused $300M worth of shopping cart abandonment as many users resented having to register to make a purchase (Amazon originally predicted they would be happy about saving time on future visits with Amazon’s patented “one-click-checkout”), and others couldn’t remember if this was their first visit to Amazon and became frustrated with each failed login/password attempt. The point: no one wanted to click “Register”.
This, despite the fact that the registration form didn’t ask for any additional information that wouldn’t already be needed to checkout with. Additionally, even users who had registered in the past stumbled on the form when they forgot their email address or password.
The fix they came up with was to replace the “Register” button with “Continue” and a message that read:
“You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”
This little change resulted in a 45% increase in completed purchases, and for the first year, the site saw an additional $300M in revenue.
This is one of those classic marketing parables that reminds you to test everything and test often. Don’t just go with “common sense” or your gut feeling. You might not think that having the shopping cart on the right or left would make a big difference, but it can and does. And it can even have different results on different sites.