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Aurora Harley

Aurora Harley is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Aurora’s research and consulting experience includes organizations in a variety of industries, such as ecommerce, travel, healthcare, and B2B (business-to-business). She also conducts independent research for NN/g, and regularly leads training courses on mobile usability, UX strategies, psychology and UX, and analytics. Aurora combines her background in front-end web development and UX design to inform her work, creating effective designs that balance technical, business, and user needs.

@aurorararara

Articles and Videos

  • Cancel vs Close: Design to Distinguish the Difference

    Distinguishing between these two actions is critical to avoiding losing users’ work. Save changes before closing a view, use text labels rather than an X icon, and provide a confirmation dialog before destructive actions.

  • Usability Heuristic 3: User Control & Freedom

    No. 3 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to allow users freedom to be in control of the interaction, even if they make mistakes and will need a clearly marked way out of trouble.

  • Remote Ideation: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

    Asynchronous remote ideation allows people to contribute ideas whenever it’s convenient to do so, but synchronous sessions lead to faster results and more team building.

  • Usability Heuristic 1: Visibility of System Status

    No. 1 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to provide visibility of system status through proper feedback, so that the user knows how commands are being interpreted and what the computer is up to at any time.

  • Store Finders: Why People Still Need Locator Links

    In addition to a site-wide store-locator link, location-finder links in key areas anticipate users’ needs and make it easy to find a physical location within the context of their task.

  • Touch Targets on Touchscreens

    Interactive elements must be at least 1cm × 1cm (0.4in × 0.4in) to support adequate selection time and prevent fat-finger errors.

  • Keep Your Opinions out of an Expert Design Review

    Critiquing a design is not the same as criticizing a design. Keep opinions out of design reviews to remain objective and increase the value of the design assessment.

  • Animations Are Distracting!

    Moving UI elements attract attention, which often means distracting users from accomplishing their primary goals. Some types of animations are more distracting than others, and it's important to match how attention grabbing the motion is to the context and user needs.

  • UX Guidelines for Recommended Content

    Encourage engagement with recommendations by presenting them prominently, segmenting suggestions into clear categories, and providing methods for users to give feedback.

  • Store Finders and Locators

    Finding addresses and location information on company websites has gotten dramatically easier, but users increasingly turn to search engines or native map apps first for this task.