Card Sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the Information Architecture (IA) of a system. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they may also help you label these groups. To conduct a card sort, you can use actual cards, pieces of paper, or one of several online card-sorting software tools.
Brainstorming is one of the oldest known methods for generating group creativity. A group of people come together and focus on a problem or proposal. There are two phases of the activity. The first phase generates ideas, the second phase evaluates them.
Remote usability testing allows you to conduct user research with participants in their natural environment by employing screen-sharing software or online remote usability vendor services. You will be amazed how powerful a quick test with remote users is at discovering where your design needs to go.
In order to improve the user experience, you have to start by observing customers interacting with your product.
The first step to improving your own UX (and reaping the business benefits) is to conduct a usability assessment of your product, software or website. This process uncovers the most common problems. Often, usage analytics indicate UX issues with your product. Usability testing explains these issues.
A focus group is a moderated discussion that typically involves 5 to 10 participants. Through a focus group, you can learn about users’ attitudes, beliefs, desires, and reactions to concepts. Interviews accomplish the same without bias from other users.
At Situated Research, we help our clients to conduct competitive website assessments so our clients can stay ahead of their industry. A Competitive Website Assessment makes it easy to spy on your competition. You’ll be able to see things like how many indexed pages, inbound links, and social media followers they have, and how your traffic rank compares to theirs.
By combining eye tracking with other usability studies, you can determine where your users look, for how long, and why. This can help you design interfaces that are effective at directing user attention to important things in the user interface.
Last week we published an article on the first five tips on improving your website’s user experience. Today we want to continue with that same theme and provide the final five tips.
This list is a starting point to providing the user experience that you want to give your customers online. Remember, if users come to your website and have trouble finding information or ordering a product, they will often leave your website and you will lose their business.
Websites are a representation of your business and your products or services offered. That is why it is so important to give your users a great experience no matter how they interact with your business.
Our team has come up with ten usability guidelines for web developers and business owners to follow. This list is a starting point to providing the user experience that you want to give your customers online.
Many parts of applications are rarely experienced, yet we have to consider how the presence or absence of these states affect a user’s experience. It’s the UX designer’s job to go beyond visual design and make the best experience possible—including all the parts of the experience that nobody thinks to design.