Top 3 articles in 2013

The usability error you don't know you're making

8 Apr 2013 - Failing to speak the user's language is an easy trap to fall into because you may not know the user's vocabulary and because technical terms often become second nature to the design team. As with much of user centred design, the secret lies in getting closer to your users so you can empathise with them.

The 1-page usability test plan

2 Sept 2013 - The Usability Test Plan is a critical document to help you manage and organise a usability test. But it can sometimes appear too documentation-heavy in agile environments. What would a usability test plan look like if it was re-envisioned as a single page?

How to wow me with your UX research portfolio

4 Nov 2013 - If you work in user experience, the portfolio has replaced your CV. This is fine if you are a visual designer but for people who specialise in user experience research, the portfolio poses a particular challenge. Here are some suggestions on ways to create a winning user experience research portfolio.

Top 3 articles of all time

Tips for writing user manuals

4 Jun 2007 - User manuals have a bad reputation. In a recent USA Today poll that asked readers "Which technological things have the ability to confuse you?" user manuals came out top! Increasingly companies are rethinking the way they approach user manuals. Here are some suggestions for improving the usability of user manuals based on our experience writing them.

247 Web Usability Guidelines

6 July 2009 - Although designing usable systems requires far more than simply applying guidelines, guidelines can still make a significant contribution to usability by promoting consistency and good practice. This article contains a list of 247 guidelines we use for expert reviews in our consultancy work. You can also download the guidelines as an Excel workbook.

Layout grids for Axure and Pencil

3 Jul 2008 - Designed for use with Axure RP Pro 5 and the Pencil extension for Firefox, this resource will help you layout prototype web pages using the 960-grid system.


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David Travis Dr. David Travis (@userfocus) has been carrying out ethnographic field research and running product usability tests since 1989. He has published three books on user experience including Think Like a UX Researcher.

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