Hidden navigation menus, such as hamburger menus negatively affect discoverability, increase task time and perceived difficulty of the tasks.
Quantitative user testing studies aren't as common as qualitative studies in the world of User Experience Research, but this brilliant study by Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) with 179 participants found that hidden menus, such as hamburger menus led to worse discoverability on both desktop and mobile devices.
Methodology
The study by NNG used remote unmoderated testing, which involves users recording their screen and voice at home, whilst working through instructions. Six live websites were tested across desktop and mobile, including three types of navigation:
Hidden navigation: where the main navigation is placed under an icon (e.g. hamburger) and the user is required to click or hover over the icon to display the navigation
Visible navigation: main navigation shown clearly in a navigation bar
Combo navigation: a combination…
Flat Website Design: A Fad or the Web’s New Look?
Like the hottest fashion fads, website design trends come and go. The days when carousel sliders and sidebars ruled the Web are long gone. In the last few years, flat websites have taken over.
The reason? Modern Internet users are savvier than their predecessors. They know how to navigate a webpage, so there’s no need to use shading and textures to guide their eyes.
Flat designs also have faster load times and a clean, professional look. According to Bluehost, these sites offer perfect scalability for mobile devices. These attributes not only enhance UX but also improve a site’s PageRank.
But is flat design a bottle-rocket fad that will burn out as fast as it took off? Or will it be the Web’s new wayfarer – a trend that remains popular through the decades…
Apple's iPhone 7 may yet be a success, but that doesn't mean it deserves to be.
This week I came to the conclusion that I have officially gone mad. Either that, or the entire world is mad, and I am in fact sane (which, in terms of probability: 7.4bn to 1 just doesn’t add up. So it must surely be me who is mad whilst the world is sane). Here's the evidence for my supposition –you decide which, or what it is.
As is now customary, the month of September saw Apple launch its latest ‘must-have’ gadgets and upgrades. As you, me and a stray aardvark in some distant land know by now, the September headline Apple news for 2016 was the launches of the iPhone 7 and IPhone 7 Plus. (Additionally, the September event focussed on an Apple Watch system upgrade, as well as release of new IOS and Desktop software).
Like…
Important lessons from the Pokémon GO phenomenon
Did you ever think you would be waiting for the lift in work, and be asked “Are there any Pokémon in reception?”
Thanks to an April Fool’s prank gone viral, this may now be a common conversation among your colleagues. The newest global phenomenon Pokémon GO succeeds in blurring the lines between the physical and digital, in a way never before seen, by using a combination of Augmented Reality (AR) and GPS to bring wild Pokémon to your front door.
Niantic Inc’s brainchild captured the nation’s attention way before its official release in the UK. Now that it is finally here, it has effectively created a new benchmark for enhanced user experience.
Falling tentatively along the line of augmented reality and location based gaming, Pokémon GO uses an AR interface that overlays 3D digital…
How to increase loading times and keep web visitors happy
Loading Times: Are They THAT big of a deal?
Web performance optimisation, or WPO, is a term that relates to the various techniques IT specialists use in order to increase the speed in which websites are downloaded and displayed on a user’s web browser.
You may be thinking, “what a waste of time – most pages load quickly enough, and what difference is a few seconds going to make?” Well, honestly, you’d be surprised. And, more often than not, we’re talking milliseconds rather than seconds.
In fact, according to this compendium of web performance stats by Radware, there are 55 reasons why you need to optimise your website’s performance and page loading times:
44 percent of online shoppers claim that a slow transaction increases their anxiety about that purchase.
Online shoppers remember load times as being 35 percent longer than they actually were.
…
Examples of the latest trends in creating desktop and mobile digital experiences
In this article I'm going to review the trends in digital experience design that we've seen so far in 2016. As a designer and developer, I’ve written about such trends before, but this is the first year where I have started to notice the more significant changes I'll describe first.
In the web design/digital experience development community, there has often been separation between the way a website looks and the way a website works. This has generally resulted in differences of opinion between designers and developers. In recent years we have started to see this change, but for the first time we are seeing less of a divide with designers now paying serious attention to functionality and not just to form and design.
1. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence will have a big impact on the way designers…
When selecting colours for your site, consider which are most popular
You see endless posts about the meanings of various colours. Purple conveys superiority, blue= calm, red= passion and yellow= happiness. This is all well and good, but misses one crucial point which should be considered when assessing site colour; what colours do people actually like?
This chart shows the favourite and least favourite colours of over 200 people across various age groups, although the majority were aged 19-35.
It's interesting that blue was so popular across genders, and brown was almost universally unpopular. When it came to purple there was a big difference between genders, with almost a quarter of women saying it was their favourite colour and over a fifth of men saying it was their least favourite.
So it's probably best not to use too much brown…
Big majority of marketers now highly focused on user experience
Good news for those annoyed by horrifically complex user journeys, marketers are finally paying attention to your plight! It's probably good news for marketers as well, as a lack of focus on customer journey will mean prospects dropping out of your marketing funnel left right and centre.
The chart below based on data from the programmatic ad agency Celtra, show how many marketers have been awakened to importance of customer experience. Very close to half said it was a high priority, whilst another quarter declared it was their highest priority. For those 22% who are laggards who don't think about it, you may want to consider it! Although in fairness, it may be a flaw in the survey given that there was no 'not applicable option'.
Source: …
Which resolutions of web browsers should you target when testing new website designs or on conversion rate optimization projects?
It pays to be aware of the screen resolutions for the devices your prospects and customers are using since the quality of experience you deliver through your website can vary hugely depending on how well your design works at different resolutions. Even with a responsive web design (RWD) where screen layout adjusts depending on resolution, there are 'break points' which may mean that some resolutions don't work so well.
The latest worldwide screen resolutions show the challenge of the wide range of Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet screen resolutions to test against. Of course, the tablet and smartphone resolutions have to be tested in both portrait and landscape format:
Of course, to find out the…
The evolution of flat design and how its journey so far can shape your online presence
Whatever the goal of your site, it has to have style and substance to succeed, but what if I told you that following one web design trend could help you to achieve both?
Increased browser support for CSS3 saw an explosion of gradients and box shadows, but the web development world is taking a huge leap away from these traditional design details and embracing the clean, crisp nature of flat design. The move sees less vendor prefixes and shorter style sheets, two factors that mean less kilobytes on page load. Here we will explore the key principles of flat design, its impact on user behaviour, experience and ultimately conversion, and unveil how this particular trend is likely to evolve throughout 2016.
Flat design at a glance
Thanks to its minimalistic nature, flat design has been the go-to concept…
