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Human Computer Interaction Articles & Videos

  • Working Memory and External Memory

    People have very limited ability to keep information in their working memory while performing tasks, so user interfaces should be designed accordingly: to minimize memory load. One way of doing so is to offload items to external memory by showing them on the screen.

  • Video Game Design and User Experience

    Video game design is a special case of user interface design, with some differences (especially in user goals) but also many similarities with more traditional UX design problems and methods.

  • UX 2050 (Jakob Nielsen keynote)

    The user experience field will see dramatic changes over the next 3 decades, driven by trends in demographics and the world economy. We will end up like the Little Mermaid. (This was Jakob Nielsen's UX Conference keynote.)

  • Aesthetic and Minimalist Design (Usability Heuristic #8)

    Aesthetically pleasing designs can provide memorable experiences that differentiate a brand. However, interfaces should only include necessary elements, with high informational value. Clarity will always win over visual flourish.

  • Design for the Elderly

    Problems arise when people get older, but that just means opportunities for better design to support elderly users. The very best designs will help the elderly, but also be adapted by everybody else.

  • User-Experience Quiz: 2020 UX Year in Review

    Test your usability knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles published last year.

  • 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.

  • Who Inspired Jakob Nielsen?

    At the Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen talked about the people who inspired him early in his career — and more recently.

  • Abandoning Best Practices in UX

    When should one abandon best practices in user experience, and what does it take to declare that something is a best practice?

  • User Interface Design Fails

    Jakob Nielsen discusses the biggest failures in today's user interface design. (Recorded at the Virtual UX Conference.)

  • Opening Links in New Browser Windows and Tabs

    Carefully examine the user’s context, task at hand, and next steps when deciding whether to open links to documents and external sites in the same or a new browser tab.

  • Task Analysis: Support Users in Achieving Their Goals

    Task analysis is the systematic study of how users complete tasks to achieve their goals. This knowledge ensures products and services are designed to efficiently and appropriately support those goals.

  • Changing Role of the Designer Part 2: Community Based Design

    To solve big-scale design problems, Don Norman recommends engaging with the community that has these problems and leveraging existing creativity and experience.

  • The Changing Role of the Designer: Practical Human-Centered Design

    Human-centered design has 4 principles: understand the problem, the people, and the system, and do iterative design. But what if you don't have time to do all 4 steps?

  • Virtual UX Conference Q&A With Jakob Nielsen

    At the first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered participant questions about topics ranging from user-experience careers and skill development to foldable smartphones and the future of user interfaces.

  • Good Abandonment on Search Results Pages

    Now that people can easily find answers to their questions directly on results pages, content creators must rethink their role in providing information to their users.

  • Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better?

    In people with normal vision (or corrected-to-normal vision), visual performance tends to be better with light mode, whereas some people with cataract and related disorders may perform better with dark mode. On the flip side, long-term reading in light mode may be associated with myopia.

  • Information Scent: How Users Decide Where to Go Next

    When deciding which links to click on the web, users choose those with the highest information scent — which is a mix of cues that they get from the link label, the context in which the link is shown, and their prior experiences.

  • User-Experience Quiz: 2019 UX Year in Review

    Test your usability knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles that we published last year.

  • The 3 Response Time Limits in Interaction Design

    User interfaces must be fast, or users will give up. (In the case of websites, they'll leave if pages download too slowly.) The exact maximum response times vary by usage circumstances, and should be either 0.1, 1.0, or 10 seconds.

  • Working Memory and External Memory

    People have very limited ability to keep information in their working memory while performing tasks, so user interfaces should be designed accordingly: to minimize memory load. One way of doing so is to offload items to external memory by showing them on the screen.

  • Video Game Design and User Experience

    Video game design is a special case of user interface design, with some differences (especially in user goals) but also many similarities with more traditional UX design problems and methods.

  • UX 2050 (Jakob Nielsen keynote)

    The user experience field will see dramatic changes over the next 3 decades, driven by trends in demographics and the world economy. We will end up like the Little Mermaid. (This was Jakob Nielsen's UX Conference keynote.)

  • Design for the Elderly

    Problems arise when people get older, but that just means opportunities for better design to support elderly users. The very best designs will help the elderly, but also be adapted by everybody else.

  • 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.

  • Who Inspired Jakob Nielsen?

    At the Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen talked about the people who inspired him early in his career — and more recently.

  • Abandoning Best Practices in UX

    When should one abandon best practices in user experience, and what does it take to declare that something is a best practice?

  • User Interface Design Fails

    Jakob Nielsen discusses the biggest failures in today's user interface design. (Recorded at the Virtual UX Conference.)

  • Changing Role of the Designer Part 2: Community Based Design

    To solve big-scale design problems, Don Norman recommends engaging with the community that has these problems and leveraging existing creativity and experience.

  • The Changing Role of the Designer: Practical Human-Centered Design

    Human-centered design has 4 principles: understand the problem, the people, and the system, and do iterative design. But what if you don't have time to do all 4 steps?

  • Virtual UX Conference Q&A With Jakob Nielsen

    At the first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered participant questions about topics ranging from user-experience careers and skill development to foldable smartphones and the future of user interfaces.

  • The 3 Response Time Limits in Interaction Design

    User interfaces must be fast, or users will give up. (In the case of websites, they'll leave if pages download too slowly.) The exact maximum response times vary by usage circumstances, and should be either 0.1, 1.0, or 10 seconds.

  • Steering Law for Cursor and Mouse Movements in a GUI Tunnel

    In a graphical user interface, having the user move a cursor within a narrow path (e.g., in a hierarchical menu or a slider) follows a strict law for how easy or difficult it is to do, depending on specifics of the GUI.

  • Fitts's Law

    Fitts's Law describes how long it takes a user to hit a target in a graphical user interface (GUI) or other design, as a function of size and distance. Understanding this law helps us design better buttons, forms, lists, and other interactive elements.

  • Will People Be More Tech Savvy in 10 Years? (Jakob Nielsen)

    People naturally avoid studying computers. Don't expect people's technical skills to improve in the future.

  • Observe, Test, Iterate, and Learn (Don Norman)

    There isn’t a next time in product development. You must always study to keep up with the product cycle.

  • Principles of Human-Centered Design (Don Norman)

    Human-Centered Design (HCD) is not about following processes. It’s about being mindful of HCD principles. Keep focus on people and the entire system to solve the right problems.

  • Are You a Cognitive Designer? (Don Norman)

    Don Norman answers the question people often ask: What kind of a designer am I?

  • Design for How People Think (Don Norman)

    Design for how people are, not what you want them to be.

  • Human Technology Teamwork: The Role of Machines and Humans in Good UX Design (Don Norman)

    Design technology to be a collaborator—a team worker. Allow people to do what they are good at rather than force them to act like machines.

  • Why Designers Think Users Are Lazy: 3 Human Behaviors

    Do you ever think your users are lazy, or maybe even a little bit dumb? Device Inertia, momentum behavior, and selective attention are common behaviors that can make users seem slothful. However, interface design, not deficient user effort, is the true cause for these error-prone user paths.

  • Apple's products are getting harder to use because they ignore principles of design

    Today, the products are beautiful, but for many of us, confusing. The fonts are pleasant to the eye, but difficult to read. The principle of "discoverability" has been lost. The only way to know what to do in many situations is to have memorized the action.

  • The Roots of Minimalism in Web Design

    Many popular web-design trends originate in minimalism, a movement that aims to reduce information overload by presenting content in its simplest form.

  • 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.

  • Don’t Prioritize Efficiency Over Expectations

    Features meant to increase user efficiency by reducing steps can end up hurting users if they do not conform to existing mental models and expectations based on past experiences.

  • Change Blindness Causes People to Ignore What Designers Expect Them to See

    People often overlook new visual details added to an existing image. This affects the usability of many design elements, from error messages to navigation.

  • Emotional Design Fail: I'm Divorcing My Nest Thermostat

    In an emotional-design fail, the Nest thermostat let me down: behaviorally, reflectively, and finally viscerally.

  • Timing Guidelines for Exposing Hidden Content

    Events triggered via hover or click require distinct timing to avoid accidental activations and ensure that the user feels in control of the interface.

  • Animation for Attention and Comprehension

    Moving elements are a powerful tool to attract users’ attention. When designing an animation consider its goal, its frequency of occurrence, and its mechanics.

  • Direct Access vs. Sequential Access: Definition

    In interface design favor direct access to the user’s preferred item instead of forcing users to go through your content in a serial order.

  • Memory Recognition and Recall in User Interfaces

    Showing users things they can recognize improves usability over needing to recall items from scratch because the extra context helps users retrieve information from memory.

  • Scaling User Interfaces: An Information-Processing Approach to Multi-Device Design

    Designing for all screen sizes must consider the human–device communication capacity, which depends on users’ memory, device portability, and screen size.

  • Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability

    The total cognitive load, or amount of mental processing power needed to use your site, affects how easily users find content and complete tasks.

  • Form Design Quick Fix: Group Form Elements Effectively Using White Space

    Improve the layout of your online forms by placing form labels near the associated text field and by grouping similar fields.

  • Interaction Cost

    The interaction cost is the sum of efforts — mental and physical — that the users must deploy in interacting with a site in order to reach their goals.

  • The Human Body as Touchscreen Replacement

    When you touch your own body, you feel exactly what you touch — better feedback than any external device. And you never forget to bring your body.

  • When the UI Is Too Fast

    Users might overlook things that change too fast — and even when they do notice, changeable screen elements are harder to understand in a limited timeframe.

  • Usability 101: Introduction to Usability

    What is usability? How, when, and where to improve it? Why should you care? Overview answers basic questions + how to run fast user tests.

  • How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?

    Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people's attention for much longer. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.

  • Test-Taking Enhances Learning

    People remember much more after reading if they retrieve information about the text from memory. Quizzes are one way websites can help users remember more.