[IxDA Discuss] asking for name as well as email

Hi, Old problem - marketing director wants to gather names upfront with email addresses. I say we reduce sign up considerably if we do that. He says can you prove it. I realise I have no stats or hard evidence... Can anyone point me to some stats / case studies I can use to illustrate my point? An

Re: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern

Thanks Jared - really useful stuff. The project I'm working on has high value items with associated lower value items, so the upsell step between add to basket and checkout should work well. I've also been running some research interviews around our prototype and found that people are pleased to

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Scrollbar Down Button and Shift Direction

It's an interesting point, I have no idea why they designed it like that, maybe just an oversight? I initially found the 2 finger scroll interaction of the Mac touchpad confusing. When you move your fingers down, the page scrolls up, and vice versa, because you are gripping the scrollbar not the

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Mega Drop-Down Navigation menus

Hi Nik Ping an email all the way around the world and the only person to answer is in the same town as you! Just been talking through the same issue.Our take on it was that the top level should link to orientation pages, i.e. pages which act as a category page for the content below. This also

[IxDA Discuss] good examples of product configuration

Hi IXDA Can anyone point me in the direction of good practice for online product configuration? I'm looking at wardrobe configuration where the customer can choose a layout / size, a finish, add mirrors, internal options - shelves etc. There's a similar tool here:

Re: [IxDA Discuss] good examples of product configuration

Thanks Bruce - good food for thought. James also sent me the Ikea version: http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/rooms_ideas/pax_step_by_step_08/index.html s -- www.pixelthread.co.uk Pixel Thread Ltd Spike Design, 133 Cumberland Road, Bristol, BS1 6UX Tel: 07985 979 852

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Persona Workshops

Hi Jan I've done this a few times, and one thing that worked quite well was getting the team to draw up personas, stick them up on the wall, then all go around and add post-its to other people's with their comments. Make sure you have plenty of data for them to work from - run through

[IxDA Discuss] video sharing / hosting

Hi IXDA I'm about to start work on a concept for a video sharing site to sit behind a corporate firewall and I'm looking for examples of best practice. I'm currently looking at what works well / not so well in YouTube, Vimeo, iPlayer, Ted. What advice would you give me? Has anyone carried out

Re: [IxDA Discuss] video sharing / hosting

Hi Mike - Not hugely different requirements, but definitely lower quantities! Categorisation will probably be done through tagging, and videos can be uploaded by anyone and available to anyone inside the firewall... Cheers Sam 2009/8/5 Mike Myles mmyles2...@yahoo.com: Being a corporate video

Re: [IxDA Discuss] toggle on / off design pattern

Thanks for all the responses, I'm digging this one: http://widowmaker.kiev.ua/checkbox/ - ideally I want this to be workable for screenreaders, but I think the application is too complex for the company to build an accessible version - it would cost $$$. ixda saves the day again : ) 2009/7/29

Re: [IxDA Discuss] toggle on / off design pattern

Hi Alan Thanks for responding. My issue with a checkbox is that conventionally the response to the user's action isn't instantaneous (though it is possible with js) - normally a checkbox is followed by a submit button to action the user's input. I'm after more of a live on/off switch, which is

[IxDA Discuss] toggle on / off design pattern

Greetings Can anyone point me in the direction of a useable design pattern for an on / off toggle switch to be used online ie using JS / html / css rather than flash? I'm working on an application that currently uses colour coding to indicate whether an option is active or not. This works in the

Re: [IxDA Discuss] address from postcode / zip code

Thanks Caroline, that's pretty damn comprehensive! 2009/1/12 Caroline Jarrett caroline.jarr...@effortmark.co.uk Hi, Here's what I currently advise as best practice for using postcode lookup in the UK: 1. Users expect to see this feature. It's ubiquitous. 2. Don't force users to

Re: [IxDA Discuss] starring an item

Greg Thomas memorialwebsites.legacy.com On Jan 5, 2009, at 5:16 AM, Sam Menter sammen...@gmail.com wrote: Do you think 'starring' a favourite item become a standard design pattern? It's used by firefox, google, twitter... Has anyone done any user research on this? I think it's probably

[IxDA Discuss] address from postcode / zip code

Hi Lots of UK sites find the user's full address from their postcode (zipcode). This saves the user typing a full address, but I'm not convinced it makes the form completion any easier. When there are lots of houses on the same postcode, the user still has to scroll through a long list of

[IxDA Discuss] starring an item

Do you think 'starring' a favourite item become a standard design pattern? It's used by firefox, google, twitter... Has anyone done any user research on this? I think it's probably understood by the very web literate but hasn't yet crept out into the wider world. Interested to know your

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Tog on Gestures will force the mouse into retirement

I imagine a touchscreen control, roughly the same size as a computer keyboard, but with the same dimensions ratio as the monitor, that you use to control the main monitor / PC. It would respond to various of gestures - 2 fingers, 3 fingers, swiping, tapping etc. This could combine the benefits of

[IxDA Discuss] best practice for security questions

Hi there Can anyone point me in the direction of sample security questions that could be used to verify a user's identity if they don't have an email address and have forgotten a password? EG Mother's maiden name, first school etc etc. I think best practice would be to let a users set the

Re: [IxDA Discuss] UK based user experience freelancers?

to be a hot bed of usability these days. Why dont you take a look at 'london_usablity' yahoo group and 'london-ia' and see what jobs are popping up on there. All the best. Carl 2008/12/10 Sam Menter sammen...@gmail.com Hi IXDA list A few questions for UK based UE freelancers / recruitment

[IxDA Discuss] UK based user experience freelancers?

Hi IXDA list A few questions for UK based UE freelancers / recruitment agencies... *About the current UE industry* • It seems to me there's lots of work about at the moment... how are you currently finding things? • How do you feel about the recession - could it be good for freelancers as

Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Designers Review of Books

Hi all I've posted a list of my reads here: http://www.pixelthread.co.uk/reading-list/ Lots of overlaps, and my list steers towards the less academic end of the UE spectrum. I have to say that About Face has been the most influential book I've read. Cheers Sam Disclaimer: a couple of the

Re: [IxDA Discuss] perceived problems with personas

Chris - I think that's a key point: Personas help us avoid the pitfalls of: 1. Designing for ourselves (aka art) 2. Designing for some stretchy variables in a market segment / demographic 3. Designing for the technology And I'd add, 4. Trying to design for everyone, thereby creating design

Re: [IxDA Discuss] perceived problems with personas

Hi The biggest problem I've found with personas comes when they haven't been explained fully to a client - for example a stakeholder has been forwarded the persona document, and they see the personas as representing a demographic rather than a segmentation based on likely user tasks. I guess it's