Information Architecture

Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way.  The goal is to help users find information and complete tasks. The Information Architecture Institute defines information architecture simply: “Information architecture is the practice of deciding how to arrange the parts of something to be understandable.” The purpose of your … Read more

User Story Maps and Wireframes

In Agile, user story maps are a holistic view of your product backlog. A product backlog is a repository of requirements for the releases of the product. The user story map is focused on the user experience target outcomes and identifying the best way to ‘slice’ your product releases by minimal viable product (MVP). A … Read more

10 Tips to Increase Website Homepage Conversion

I started developing website in the 1990’s – HTML 1, before CSS, basic JavaScript and the beginning of the dot com boom. Now there is HTML 5, CSS 3 and all sorts of libraries and frameworks to create sophisticated websites. One thing hasn’t change about websites – they still need to be easy to use. … Read more

Form Design Best Practices and Guidelines

Every day, we fill out forms. At the office to get our work done and at home to take care of our domestic needs. Forms are the lifeblood of digital information sharing. A couple of excellent guidelines on forms: Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design Best Practices shares guidelines on input fields, input labels, validation, feedback, … Read more

The Right Color Palette for Data Visualization

While visually appealing (harmonious) color palettes are easy to come by these days, finding the right color palette for data visualizations is challenging. Things are made more difficult, as we need to convey information across thousands of unique data sets in many different types of visualization layouts. And then there are issues like accessibility, enough … Read more

Data Visualizations: Storytelling and Persuasion

In Data Visualization: Your Secret Weapon in Storytelling and Persuasion, Adam Singer, Analytics Advocate at Google shares: “In a world increasingly saturated with data and information, visualizations are a potent way to break through the clutter, tell your story, and persuade people to action.” Statistics are good but showing your data in context of what … Read more

Service Blueprints – Going Beyond Customer Journey Maps

Where customer journey maps define your customers – prospects through advocates – touch points with your brand, products and services; service blueprints define the the behind-the-scenes people, processes and technology that supports that journey. Where creating a customer journey maps requires you to “walk in the shoes” of your customer and see your organization through … Read more

System Response Time and Feedback Guidelines

  There is no industry standard for application response time1. How long someone is willing to wait is only relevant in the context of how important the task is to them. For example, how long someone is willing to wait to view their family’s online photo album versus how long they are willing to wait … Read more

Making the Complex Simple with Progressive Disclosure

So how do you make the complex simple? How do you accommodate a person’s first-time experience from their familiar routine from their advance experts needs? With progressive disclosure. Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique to help maintain the focus of a person’s attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive load by presenting only the … Read more

Designing Experiences for E-Commerce Shoppers

The Nielsen Norman Group has identified five types of e-commerce shoppers: Product-focused shoppers know exactly what they want. They only want to locate the product, confirm it’s the right one, and buy it. Some don’t even look at product descriptions at all – a quick look at the name and picture confirms that the product … Read more

The Customer Experience Revolution – The Trailer

It has been an exciting year for Jeof and I and The Customer Experience Revolution this month. We had a great time as Closing Keynotes at SDL Innovate 2014 in San Francisco, the book went into a third printing, and Brigantine Media just released this trailer.

Hick–Hyman Law and Design

Psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman define “the time it takes for a person to make a decision as a result of the possible choices he or she has” in the Hick–Hyman Law.That is, increasing the number of choices will increase the decision time logarithmically. This means that people subdivide their total collection of choices into categories, eliminating … Read more