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Design Patterns Articles & Videos

  • Instructional Overlays and Coach Marks for Mobile Apps

    Instructions in mobile applications must be designed for optimal scannability, as users tend to dismiss them quickly and do not read thoroughly.

  • Killing Off the Global Navigation: One Trend to Avoid

    For desktop sites, demoting your main content categories into a drop-down menu makes it harder for users to discover your offerings.

  • Infinite Scrolling Is Not for Every Website

    Endless scrolling saves people from having to attend to the mechanics of pagination in browsing tasks, but is not a good choice for websites that support goal-oriented finding tasks.

  • Fight Against “Right-Rail Blindness”

    Users have trained themselves to divert their attention away from areas that look like advertising. When designed well, sidebars can effectively increase content discoverability.

  • Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes of 2008

    Application usability is enhanced when users know how to operate the UI and it guides them through the workflow. Violating common guidelines prevents both.

  • Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

    Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.

  • The Need for Web Design Standards

    Users expect 77% of the simpler Web design elements to behave in a certain way. Unfortunately, confusion reigns for many higher-level design issues.

  • When Bad Design Elements Become the Standard

    Anything done by more than 90% of big sites becomes a de-facto design standard that must be followed unless an alternative design achieves 100% increased usability.

  • Breaking out of the Content Silo

    Coming from a traditional content/writing background, Michelle Blake presents her case study of broadening her remit to a fuller range of user-experience issues and improved the design of her organization's website.

  • The Role of Design Ethics in UX

    The push for less-ethical or even deceptive user interfaces is often caused by short-term thinking and immediate UX metrics. The long-term impact of harming users can backfire and lead to reduced brand loyalty.

  • When is It OK to Be Inconsistent in User Interface Design?

    Consistent design enhances learnability and is usually best for usability. But if the problem you're solving is sufficiently different, then inconsistency may be better.

  • 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.

  • Popup Problems

    Popups and many kinds of modal dialogs are often intrusive user interface elements that get in the way of users' goals and cause annoyance. Here are some of the worst popup UX sins.

  • 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.

  • "It Depends": Why UX Is Dependent on Context

    When we’re asked questions, UX professionals will often respond with, “it depends.” Why do we rely so much on this phrase?

  • The Immutable Rules of UX (Jakob Nielsen Keynote)

    Jakob Nielsen's keynote at the Las Vegas UX Conference discussed the foundational principles of user experience that are stable decade after decade.

  • Design Patterns For Complex Apps and Workflows

    Two design principles for supporting complex and repetitive workflows.

  • The 3 B's Test For When to Follow Design Trends

    Know when to follow or banish a design trend. The 3 B's: Budget, Brand, and Behavior will help you make the right decisions.

  • Making Flat Design Usable

    The hazards of flat design and 5 key UX guidelines for making flat design usable.

  • Is UX Getting Better or Worse? (Jakob Nielsen Keynote)

    Each UI generation often takes two steps forward, then one step back. Even as new technologies emerge (e.g., Artificial Intelligence (AI) and speech recognition), knowing established UX guidelines will help you avoid missteps. This was Jakob Nielsen's keynote at the UX Conference in Copenhagen.

  • Tips for Icon Usability

    6 UX guidelines to ensure that your users recognize your icons and know what they mean.

  • Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience

    Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. Design for patterns for which users are accustomed.