5-Card Friday

A Bi-Weekly Update from the ITS UX Team

1-8-2021
5-Card Friday Archives  |  ITS UX Team Profile Page (Confluence)  |  ux-services@apa.org
UI

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

This article from NN/g explores Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines.

Learn more about these heuristics, which were first published in 1994 and still hold true today.

10 Usability Heuristics for UI Design

"UI design is less about making something look attractive (although it helps) and more knowing how to create a valid path from idea to execution, backed with statistics and evidence, for the benefit of our users." (Steven Douglas)

Jakob’s 10 Usability Heuristics are:

  1. Visibility of system status
  2. Match between system and the real world
  3. User control and freedom
  4. Consistency and standards
  5. Error prevention
  6. Recognition rather than recall
  7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
  8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
  9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
  10. Help and documentation

Learn more about these usability heuristics and download all 10 posters from the article.

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Visual Design

The 5 Main Anti-Trends in Design

Trends come and go. Especially in the UI world, designers are easily getting hooked on the newest crazes, without putting them under thorough consideration.

Flip the card over to learn more about anti-trends.

The 5 Main Anti-Trends in Design

As much as I don't want to demonize trends, some of them, if used thoughtlessly, might be a real disaster to a product.

As beautifully as they look on a flattened composition of screens, creating an visually stunning mosaic—they won't be functional or easy to use at all.

Some of the trends are becoming so popular, that the popularity of a certain look or effect is a danger to a product itself—the products on the market are starting to look like the army of clones—with no originality and no recognizability factor.

The 5 anti-trends discussed in this article are:

  1. The same type of illustration syndrome
  2. The Unsplash effect
  3. The rounded ridiculosity
  4. The naughty neumorphism
  5. The transparency trap
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UX & UI

8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications

Despite great diversity in the workflows and end users supported by complex applications, the 8 design guidelines discussed in this NN/g article are generally applicable.

Learn more about these guidelines on the back of this card.

8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications

Complex applications are diverse, supporting a board range of user types and workflows; however, similar challenges exist across such complex applications, regardless of domain. Optimize complex applications by following these 8 design guidelines:

  1. Promote learning by doing.
  2. Help users adopt more efficient methods to do their tasks.
  3. Provide flexible and fluid pathways through workflows.
  4. Help users track actions and thought processes.
  5. Coordinate transition among multiple tools and workspaces.
  6. Reduce clutter without reducing capability.
  7. Ease transition between primary and secondary information.
  8. Make important information visually salient.
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UX

Top 10 UX Articles of 2020

Dark mode vs. light mode... which is better? Listboxes vs. dropdown lists... which should you use and when? These are just two of the topics covered in the top UX articles of last year.

Flip the card over to learn more about the top 10 NN/g articles of 2020.

Top 10 UX Articles of 2020

The following NN/g user experience articles published in 2020 were the ones their audience read the most. Visit the full article for links to each article.

  1. Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better?
  2. How People Read Online: New and Old Findings
  3. 5 Principles of Visual Design in UX
  4. 7 Ways to Analyze a Customer-Journey Map
  5. Listboxes vs. Dropdown Lists
  6. PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later
  7. What a UX Career Looks Like Today
  8. The Discovery Phase in UX Projects
  9. UX Roadmaps: Definition and Components
  10. Journey Mapping for Remote Teams: A Digital Template
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UX

Top 10 UX Videos of 2020

What is the difference between "CX" and "UX"? What is "vocabulary inflation" in UX and why is it an issue? These are just two of the topics covered in the top UX videos of last year.

Flip the card over to learn more about the top 10 NN/g videos of 2020.

Top 10 UX Videos of 2020

The following NN/g user experience videos published in 2020 were the ones their audience viewed the most. Visit the full article for links to each video. Each video runs for 2–4 minutes, unless otherwise indicated.

  1. 21st Century Design
  2. UX Research Cheat Sheet
  3. 5 Qualitative Research Methods
  4. The Changing Role of the Designer: Practical Human-Centered Design (5 min.)
  5. CX vs. UX
  6. Open vs. Closed Questions in User Research
  7. Don't Listen to the Customers
  8. The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice in UX Writing
  9. UX Portfolios: What Hiring Managers Look For
  10. Vocabulary Inflation in UX (13 min.)
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