Application Design Articles & Videos

  • 3 Ways to Level Up Your Visual Design Skills

    Designers, researchers, and generalists alike can improve their visual design skills through creative exercises focused on identification, replication, or exploration.

  • The Aesthetic Usability Effect and Prioritizing Appearance vs. Functionality

    Users believe that designs that look good also work well, and UX should take advantage of this. But don't make aesthetic usability lead you astray as a designer, because the UI must actually work well for long-term success.

  • Short-Term Memory Limitations Impact User Interface Design

    People can only hold a small amount of information in their short-term memory, which fades fast. These facts impact most aspects of screen design and dictate many usability guidelines.

  • Designing for Long Waits and Interruptions: Mitigating Breaks in Workflow in Complex Application Design

    5 guidelines help users tolerate the long waits and frequent interruptions that are typical of complex workflows.

  • Using Fitts's Law to Make Links and Buttons Easier to Click

    Fitts's Law describes how long time it takes to click a target, based on the distance to the target and its size. Use this information to make buttons and links faster to click.

  • 3 Types of Onboarding New Users

    How to familiarize users with new user interfaces? Onboarding techniques include feature promotion, customization, and instructions. All must be kept simple.

  • Feature Checklists Are Not Enough: How to Avoid Making Bad Software

    A good design relies on a thorough task analysis of the steps required to complete a task, as well as determining what information users need at each step.

  • Tooltips in the User Interface

    Tooltips are small user-triggered popups that explain UI elements when the user points to something. They are useful, but don't use them for critical information.

  • Designing Complex Applications: A Framework

    5 different sources of UX complexity help explain and analyze the special design issues in complex applications.

  • Product Redesigns: Incremental or Overhaul

    Redesigning a user interface can be done in many smaller incremental releases, or as one big complete redo. Big change is risky, but necessary in 3 cases.

  • Workplace Application Usability

    Enterprise applications that support work often do so poorly and have bad user experience. The usability requirements and tradeoffs for workplace app design are different from consumer apps.

  • Onboarding: Skip it When Possible

    Onboarding instructions that users must digest before they start using an app or other product require attention and effort, and thus reduce usability. They should be avoided as much as possible.

  • UX Animations

    Animations can make user interfaces both easier and nicer to use, but the timing has to be right, as we demonstrate in this video. Many other details also contribute to the quality of animation in the user experience.

  • Time to Make Tech Work

    Users waste unacceptably much time struggling with computer bugs. Users' mental models suffer when systems don't work as advertised, leading people to question their understanding of the UX.

  • Data Visualizations for Dashboards

    To enable fast and reliable understanding of data shown on dashboard overviews, use visualization styles that work with human preattentive visual processing.

  • Error Handling on Mobile Devices: Showing Alerts

    Using a modal dialog to display an error message can cause usability problems on mobile devices. Error handling must respect human-memory constraints and remain visible as the user is fixing the problem.

  • 8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications

    Despite great diversity in the workflows and end users supported by complex applications, these 8 design guidelines are generally applicable.

  • The Visual Principle of Scale in User Interface Design

    Users pay more attention to big things than to small things, and this design principle can be used to prioritize a user experience design, such as a web page or application screen.

  • State-Switch Controls: The Infamous Case of the "Mute" Button

    On–off controls that switch between two different system states need to clearly communicate to users both the current state and the state the system will move to, should the user press that control.

  • Myths About Complex App Users

    Three stereotypes explain much resistance to improving the usability of complex applications for domain-specific tasks: that people like the old ways, that they are experts in the existing UI, and that training will make up for bad design. All are misleading.

  • 3 Ways to Level Up Your Visual Design Skills

    Designers, researchers, and generalists alike can improve their visual design skills through creative exercises focused on identification, replication, or exploration.

  • The Aesthetic Usability Effect and Prioritizing Appearance vs. Functionality

    Users believe that designs that look good also work well, and UX should take advantage of this. But don't make aesthetic usability lead you astray as a designer, because the UI must actually work well for long-term success.

  • Short-Term Memory Limitations Impact User Interface Design

    People can only hold a small amount of information in their short-term memory, which fades fast. These facts impact most aspects of screen design and dictate many usability guidelines.

  • Using Fitts's Law to Make Links and Buttons Easier to Click

    Fitts's Law describes how long time it takes to click a target, based on the distance to the target and its size. Use this information to make buttons and links faster to click.

  • 3 Types of Onboarding New Users

    How to familiarize users with new user interfaces? Onboarding techniques include feature promotion, customization, and instructions. All must be kept simple.

  • Tooltips in the User Interface

    Tooltips are small user-triggered popups that explain UI elements when the user points to something. They are useful, but don't use them for critical information.

  • Designing Complex Applications: A Framework

    5 different sources of UX complexity help explain and analyze the special design issues in complex applications.

  • Product Redesigns: Incremental or Overhaul

    Redesigning a user interface can be done in many smaller incremental releases, or as one big complete redo. Big change is risky, but necessary in 3 cases.

  • Workplace Application Usability

    Enterprise applications that support work often do so poorly and have bad user experience. The usability requirements and tradeoffs for workplace app design are different from consumer apps.

  • Onboarding: Skip it When Possible

    Onboarding instructions that users must digest before they start using an app or other product require attention and effort, and thus reduce usability. They should be avoided as much as possible.

  • UX Animations

    Animations can make user interfaces both easier and nicer to use, but the timing has to be right, as we demonstrate in this video. Many other details also contribute to the quality of animation in the user experience.

  • Time to Make Tech Work

    Users waste unacceptably much time struggling with computer bugs. Users' mental models suffer when systems don't work as advertised, leading people to question their understanding of the UX.

  • Data Visualizations for Dashboards

    To enable fast and reliable understanding of data shown on dashboard overviews, use visualization styles that work with human preattentive visual processing.

  • Error Handling on Mobile Devices: Showing Alerts

    Using a modal dialog to display an error message can cause usability problems on mobile devices. Error handling must respect human-memory constraints and remain visible as the user is fixing the problem.

  • The Visual Principle of Scale in User Interface Design

    Users pay more attention to big things than to small things, and this design principle can be used to prioritize a user experience design, such as a web page or application screen.

  • Myths About Complex App Users

    Three stereotypes explain much resistance to improving the usability of complex applications for domain-specific tasks: that people like the old ways, that they are experts in the existing UI, and that training will make up for bad design. All are misleading.

  • Virtual Reality and User Experience

    Virtual reality (VR) user interfaces are currently more difficult for users to manipulate than a traditional GUI, partly because of more degrees of freedom and partly because VR is still new, so people have less experience using it. Advice for how to employ usability studies to alleviate this problem.

  • Mask Interaction Delays with Progress Indicators

    In case of slow response times in a user interface, indicate that the wait time will soon be over by showing an animation. For longer delays use a percent-done indicator.

  • Complex Apps 101

    3 tips for designing applications for experts or specialized user groups doing complex domain-specific tasks (often with nonlinear workflows).

  • What Can UX do to Help With Covid-19?

    At the very first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered a participant question about what user experience can do to help with the coronavirus crisis.

  • What the Erroneous Hawaiian Missile Alert Can Teach Us About Error Prevention

    People should not be blamed for errors caused by poorly designed systems.

  • Wizards: Definition and Design Recommendations

    A common application-design pattern for inputting information, wizards work well for processes that are performed only occasionally.

  • Dashboards: Making Charts and Graphs Easier to Understand

    Visualizations should leverage human cognition and use length and 2D position to communicate quantitative information quickly.

  • Input Controls for Parameters: Balancing Exploration and Precision with Sliders, Knobs, and Matrices

    Linked controls support coarse and fine parameter selection and ensure both ease of exploration and precision.

  • Modal & Nonmodal Dialogs: When (& When Not) to Use Them

    Modal dialogs interrupt users and demand an action. They are appropriate when user’s attention needs to be directed toward important information.

  • Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries

    Rent the Runway, Uber, and Airbnb challenge the traditional experiences of their industries through deep design, not just screen-UI design.

  • Date-Input Form Fields: UX Design Guidelines

    Date-entry fields must be unambiguous and support task completion by using the right design pattern. Small design changes can prevent big user errors.

  • Wireflows: A UX Deliverable for Workflows and Apps

    Wireflows are a combination of wireframes and flowcharts. They can document workflow and screen designs when there are few pages that change dynamically.

  • 6 Tips for Successful Personalization

    Well-designed personalization carefully considers the creation of roles or types, ensures content is available for roles, and retains user control over the experience.

  • Direct Manipulation: Definition

    Direct-manipulation UIs support interaction with visible objects of interest via physical, reversible, incremental actions that receive immediate feedback.

  • 7 Tips for Successful Customization

    Customization tools must be simple-to-use, easy-to-find, and easily edited, with both a clear intent and a clear benefit to users.

  • Customization vs. Personalization in the User Experience

    Customization gives control to the user and personalization gives control to the site. Both can enhance experiences, but only when carefully implemented.

  • Tabs, Used Right

    12 design guidelines for tab controls to distinguish tabs from site navigation and address click uncertainty.

  • Top 10 Intranet Trends of 2016

    Hero images, carousels, fat footers, video, minimalist design, and responsive navigation, are among some of the top feature trends of the best intranets of 2016. We even see a revival of online help that’s actually helpful to employees exploring new features or attempting complex tasks.

  • Slider Design: Rules of Thumb

    Selecting a precise value using a slider is a difficult task requiring good motor skills, even if the slider is well designed. If picking an exact value is important to the goal of the interface, choose an alternate UI element.

  • Indicators, Validations, and Notifications: Pick the Correct Communication Option

    Status feedback is crucial to the success of any system. Knowing when to use 3 common communication methods is key to supporting users.

  • A Checklist for Designing Mobile Input Fields

    When you design an input field for use on mobile devices, check whether it satisfies this list of 14 usability requirements.

  • Help People Create Passwords That They Can Actually Remember

    Human memory studies can inform design so they help people remember passwords. This makes customers happy, saves money and time, and increases security.

  • Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable

    Wait animations, such as percent-done bars and spinners, inform users of the current working state and make the process more tolerable to the user by reducing uncertainty. Users experience higher satisfaction with a site and are willing to wait longer when the site uses a dynamic progress indicator.

  • Radio Buttons: Select One by Default or Leave All Unselected?

    Select a single radio button by default in most cases. Reasons to deviate or not: expedite tasks, the power of suggestion, user expectations, safety nets.