Usability | The Stairwell

Archive for the ‘Usability’ Category

Your Customers Need Your Website to be Responsive. Is it?

Posted by ted in Code, Design, Findings, Marketing, News, Usability on July 19th, 2012

Your users are frustrated with your website.

Over the last year and a half it has become increasingly necessary for marketers to create multiple web sites and apps to accommodate the proliferation of mobile browsing devices. There are over 1.2 billion mobile web users around the world in 2012, and 25% of these users are mobile only! Because of this, digital marketing budgets have had to include allocations for desktop web site design and development, separate tablet and phone site design and development, and even apps. In short, it had become an expensive proposition to build a positive brand experience

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Show how it works

Posted by in Usability on November 4th, 2010

Make it easy for people to learn about your product. Show them how it works. Don’t just tell them.

Dark Patterns in designing the User Experience

Posted by in Usability on September 28th, 2010

That fact is that user-centric design usually includes many steps along the way that attempt to anticipate the user’s behavior and manipulate it a certain way.

Flow &amp;amp; the User Experience

Posted by in Usability on September 13th, 2010

The User Experience experience belongs to the individual. Always has; always will.

SEO is important. Very important.

Posted by in Usability on September 1st, 2010

SEO can be tricky. The search engines are doing their best to index your site’s relevant content, but there are things you can (and should) do to make sure they are successful.

A methodical look at Hotel booking engines

Posted by in Usability on June 30th, 2010

5 major brand hotels sites evaluated by users in a formal study. See the results.

What I’ve learned: Time for the ad industry to catch up.

Posted by Ryan Nasipak in Code, Design, Inspiration, Usability on March 16th, 2010

Ok, everyone take a deep breath. I’m not going to go on an endless rant on why I think more companies need to modernize their approach to rich media ads……or am I? (cue evil laugh) Ahhhh-ha-ha-ha-ha.

What I will say is that a little more progressive thinking would help cut out a lot of the senseless number of versions required for some companies running rich media ads and also (potentially) increase your margin for success. So how did I come to this conclusion? Through recent conversation with some ad partners and also jumping through a technical hurdle or two.

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Abstracting the web, the iPad, and print media coming full circle.

Posted by in browsers, Business, Design, News, Usability on February 15th, 2010

In another blog post, I brought up the topic of how the web is being “abstracted” into new mediums and devices such as Rich Internet Applications, netbooks and tablets (e.g. the iPad). After pondering this topic a little more, it hit me that that this concept might be a lot bigger than I initially thought, and deserving of an individual posting.

As I already mentioned, there are new mediums and devices coming out that are abstracting the web and displaying the content in other more unique forms. Instead of the typical user sitting down at his/her work station and loading

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The dominance of search

Posted by in Usability on February 9th, 2010

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Last night I attended a presentation for web professionals in the Chicago area. It was organized through <a href="http://www.me

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etup.com/Chicago-Interactive-Design-Development/”>meetup.com. The presenter was Matt Moog, Founder & CEO at Viewpoints. You can see his slide deck here.

Among his many relevant points was the notion he referred to as ‘the dominance of search.’ Matt’s focus for the evening was specifically on sites that serve up social commerce, but I think the search issue is something any site needs to consider seriously. What Matt was referring to was his claim was that 50-80% of

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The art and importance of good wireframes

Posted by in Usability on January 30th, 2010

In his book, Communicating Design, Dan Brown defines wireframes as:

“A simplified view

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of what content will appear on each screen of the final product, usually devoid of color, typographical styles, and images…”

Wireframes can technically be generated by just about anybody. However it is painfully apparent when someone with little or no experience takes it upon themselves to do so. The classic example is when a client has some ideas they think are great and feels the need to express them. More often than not those ideas could be communicated through words via email

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