Userfocus Usability Newsletter, July 2014

Welcome to the July edition of the Userfocus usability and user experience newsletter!

• Message from the Editor
• Feature article: Reusing cases across different widgets and events in Axure RP Pro
• What we're reading
• Upcoming training courses
• User experience quotation of the month

Message from the Editor

This month we reached a milestone with our newsletter: we now have over 10,000 subscribers. I tell you this not to brag, but because, frankly, I feel it’s a little hard to believe. Even as recently as ten years ago, many people I spoke with didn’t really think that usability was a thing. At that point, I would have estimated the worldwide interest in usability at a few thousand people. And now, if we all got together, we could fill Accrington Stanley Football Club’s ground — twice over!

All I can say is: look out Manchester United. Userfocus newsletter subscribers are heading your way.

This month, we have an article by Ritch Macefield on Axure. It’s a little more technical than the articles we usually have on the Userfocus site and I’m curious what you think. Would you like to see more in-depth articles like this? Drop me a line and let me know.

— David Travis

Feature article: Reusing cases across different widgets and events in Axure RP Pro

During our Axure training courses, delegates often ask if it is possible to reuse cases across different events and widgets. In this article, we show how to define a library of sub-routines in Axure that can be reused by exploiting Axure's Dynamic Panels. Read the article in full: Reusing cases across different widgets and events in Axure RP Pro.

What we’re reading

Some interesting usability-related articles that got our attention over the last month:

• A nicely done, open source, skeuomorphic credit card entry form.
• "A designer's job is to help people experience change as comfortably as possible". Discuss.
• 3% of users browse with IE9 and 14% of users have a disability. Why do we cater for the former and not the latter?
• "The warning against using hollow icons in user interfaces just isn't supported by evidence from real users."
• If you still find people blindly quoting "The 3 clicks rule" at you, show them this.
• 4 cognitive design guidelines for effective information dashboards.
• Does UX need specialists or generalists? "Aspiring to be a unicorn could be the biggest mistake of your career."
• Only 10% of execs go with the data when it contradicts their gut feeling.
• You shouldn't test your ideas. You should test the assumptions behind your ideas.
• Building a product is now the easy part. Getting people to understand the product and use it is the hard part.

Like these? Want more? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Usability Training: Now Booking

Web Usability: An Introduction to User Experience, August 11-12, London.

A fast-paced, 2-day immersion seminar that shows delegates how to boost sales and conversion rates, increase usage and improve customer satisfaction. More information about this training course: Web Usability: An Introduction to User Experience.

User experience: The ultimate guide to usability

Get the inside track on web user experience in this 9-hour, online, video training course. Launched just 18 months ago, this course already has over 3000 students. Over 80% of students give the course a perfect rating of 5/5. More information about this training course: User experience: The ultimate guide to usability.

User Experience quotation of the month

“Great books aren’t written, they’re re-written.” — Michael Crichton.

Hungry for more?

Read previous newsletters.