Yearly Archives: 2008

TESLA (Time Elapsed Since Labs Attended) and RMU (Range of Methods Used)

In a recent post on Boing Boing, Clay Shirky talks about the user research approach used at meetup.com: […] Scott pulled me into a room by the elevators, where a couple of product people were watching a live webcam feed … Continue reading

Chalkmark: a simple app for testing page mock-ups on real users

Chalkmark aims to address the “challenge of user testing when there is minimal budget or time” – a worthy goal heading into cash strapped 2009. It’s made by Optimal Usability, a New Zealand based company who also make OptimalSort. Chalkmark … Continue reading

World’s best CAPTCHA

Having problems finding the budget for costly usability testing? Here’s your solution. If your users can solve this CAPTCHA, they will be able to cope with anything you throw at them! Thanks to James Wragg for the link!

Top posts of 2008 on 90percentofeverything.com

Looking back at my last 12 months of analytics, here are some of my most popular posts: My presentation on Out of Box Experience Design: this is all about designing the moments between peeling off the shrink-wrap and getting your … Continue reading

New Google Reader: Rollovertastic

I remember when I was a lad, Google was the world leader in minimalist UI design. Mind blowingly, paradigm shiftingly, amazingly clean, elegant design, where every unnecessary pixel was carefully whittled away using Occam’s own razor, leaving nothing but perfection. … Continue reading

Multiple select controls must evolve or die

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the standard form controls offered in the HTML specification are a good thing. They’ve stood the test of time, they’ve evolved and users have grown up with them. It’s always far safer to use … Continue reading

Ahh, they don’t make ’em like they used to…

Nothing says “I am a user interface” than 100 form fields crammed into about 850×550 pixels.

The unsubscribe roach motel: an email subscription anti-pattern

For those of you who don’t know the US cultural reference, the Roach Motel is a cockroach trap. Essentially just a small cardboard box with sticky paper inside, Roach Motels were made famous by Muhammad Ali, who at the tail … Continue reading

Morae 3 and dual camera support

One of the main limitations of Morae 1 & 2 was that it could only do PC based user research. The new version offers dual camera support, which is a big deal. This means you can now use Morae to … Continue reading

A/B test results for the Firefox download button wording

Mozilla’s blog of metrics has released the results of a small A/B test they ran recently. Which of the following buttons got the best clickthrough rate on the “customise firefox” page, and by how much? One of them was significantly … Continue reading