Essays are short pieces by Blink staff members on topics related to user research, interaction design, and usability engineering.
By Nika Smith, Usability Specialist
When Blink conducts usability evaluations, we seek to do more than simply identify the pain points of a web site or application. Our goal is to uncover users' honest impressions and the impact of these impressions on the overall user experience.
By John Dirks, Director of Usability Engineering
Just in time for spring, we’re posting our annual round-up of usability highlights. Blink usability specialists evaluated a host of technologies and applications in ‘08, from online games to web-based classroom tools to healthcare portals.
By Nika Smith, Usability Specialist
Social networking and content sharing web sites like Facebook and Flickr make it easy for users to connect and share details of their lives with others. Unfortunately, it is all too common to hear stories of users unknowingly sharing embarrassing status updates or photos with their professional colleagues, due to misunderstanding or ignoring available privacy settings in these sites.
By Jen Amsterlaw, Usability Specialist
When designing a new system (or redesigning an existing one), it’s important to keep the user's real-world context in mind. A lot of thought and effort will hopefully go into making sure the product delivers the right set of features, has the right look and feel, and abides by standard UI conventions. But designs that seem solid conceptually can still fail if they do not take into account how real users will interact with them in the real world.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
It's always disappointing when a design decision‐‐or collection of decisions‐‐don’t turn out the way you imagined. You may "feel the pain" through your customer service center or when you try to add functionality to features that were awkwardly designed originally.
By John Dirks, Director of Usability Engineering
You're coming up for air after an intense usability study. Your usability consultant has delivered actionable findings and recommendations to your team that you know would really improve the user experience. Now what?
By Jen Amsterlaw, Usability Specialist
The ingredients are simple: two people, a quiet place to sit and talk, and a video camera to record the session. Still, getting the most out of an interview requires careful planning and a thoughtful technique. Here I share some insights that guide my own approach to interviewing.
By John Dirks, Director of Usability Engineering
To determine what usability study participants look at and take in while viewing online media, we used to watch their mouse cursors, interactions with links and controls, and body language. We also listened carefully to their think-aloud narratives and comments. These traditional testing techniques, however, could never tell us definitively what users notice and what they don’t. Eye tracking usability studies open up a new frontier.
By John Dirks, Director of Usability Engineering
Last year was a busy one for the Blink usability testing staff. It's once again time to reflect and report some of our favorite themes based on studies we completed in 2007.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
This past June, I attended the Usability Professional Association conference—the theme for which was Patterns: Blueprints for Usability. It provided the opportunity to hear a number of different perspectives on user interface patterns—and I presented my own thoughts on the topic as a conference presenter.
By Jen Amsterlaw, Usability Specialist
Seniors are increasingly using the web to shop, find news and information, and connect with friends and family. But many websites are not designed with seniors in mind. You can make your website more senior-friendly by following a few simple rules of thumb… and the end result is often improved usability for users of all ages.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
A couple of months ago, I was part of a panel discussion on "Real-World User-Centered Design." The topic was the outgrowth of questions from a more introductory forum on user-centered design (UCD) principles. After the introductory forum there were still many burning questions—specifically, how do you adopt and adapt UCD principles to real-world organizational constraints? It's a question we sometimes encounter in our consulting work. To get the ball rolling, we recommend three steps…
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
Consistency in an interface is generally a good idea, but like many good things, it can be taken too far. Particularly in content-heavy web sites, pages with an overly similar look can make it difficult for users to get a sense of place. Too much similarity can also give a system an overall static feel. The key is to understand when a lack of consistency interferes with the user experience—and when it doesn't.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
At Blink, we are sometimes hired to create a conceptual prototype for a product that is in the very early requirements stage. Usually, the product does not yet have internal funding for development and one goal of the prototype is to secure that funding. The prototype may also be shown to trusted customers to get their feedback on the concept.
By Jill Dimond, Interaction Designer and Usability Engineer
In the game World of Warcraft, there is an interesting phenomenon occurring involving participatory design of the user interface.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
In the year 2000, there were two neatly divided user experience worlds: the world of the web and the world of desktop applications.
At Blink, we feel one of the greatest strengths we bring to clients is the extent to which we leverage our internal expertise—and work with clients—in a collaborative way. But effective collaboration is not a slam-dunk. The key is to tap into individual competencies and perspectives in a way that improves the outcome rather than hinders it.
By John Dirks, Director of Usability Engineering
Throughout 2006, Blink conducted usability studies almost weekly in our downtown Seattle labs, at client sites, and in the field. While observing hundreds of participants, we noted some interesting behaviors and themes that we’d like to share…
A common question Interface Designers face is, how does one present a lot of information without making the interface seem too busy or overwhelming?
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
Objects and actions analysis is a method of documenting what data (objects) need to be manipulated and what functions (actions) can be performed on the objects.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
One of the most important parts of planning for any type of user research or usability testing is a clear set of research questions: what do you want to find out as a result of the study? It seems like an obvious step, yet sometimes this is overlooked.
Complicated page layouts confuse users and cause them to overlook important content. Avoid this fate by following a few key design principles.
By Anne Siddall, Senior User Researcher
We have a few methods at Blink to pencil in future functionality, but still optimize your users’ initial experience.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
At Blink we create behavioral profiles, along with key scenarios, to characterize users and usage.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
Many sites are going wider, but should yours? There are several issues to consider before making the switch.
By Heidi Adkisson, Director of Interaction Design
Approximately 8% percent of Caucasian males have some type of color blindness (more correctly referred to as color deficiency). Despite this fact, major sites rely on users' ability to distinguish red.
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Blink is in the business to help their customers achieve their goals on the web."
Cheryl DeBuck, Director, Product Management, Drugstore.com
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