For years now, usability evangelists have been searching for a Perry Masonic closing remark that would secure a proper judgement from sceptics of the information architecture and user interface design process.

“Why spend time and money on prototyping and usability testing,” the stakeholders ask, “What is the ROI?”

There have been few, if any, strong cases to prove what experience designers have known and espoused since Louis Rosenfeld published his O’Reilly Polar Bear Book/IA Constitution in ‘98.

Now, Jared M. Spool has handed usability experts this elusive case study to tip the scales for any web building jury. He explains here: How Changing a Button Increased a Site’s Annual Revenues by $300 Million.

The main points? Visitors to a major e-com site didn’t want to sign in to buy, they just wanted to get in and out. Spool and his team changed the copy on the registration form (which most users wanted to skip anyway) and cashed in on an additional $300M over the next year.

Information Architecture is good. How good? $300 Million good. Now I hope you’ll get as excited as I do when you get to review wireframes and test multivariate interfaces.

Filed under: Business, Information Architecture, Usability by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: jared m. spool, louis rosenfeld, o'reilly, prototyping, roi, Usability, User Experience

You may not have known this was so important. But Goodie Bag TV demonstrates why progress bars are just one of many best practices of predictability in experience design. Embrace progress bars.

And make sure your interface is predictable!

Filed under: Usability, User Experience by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: don't make me think, goodie bag tv, interface, progress bars, User Experience

A few days ago, I did my part to support the North American car industry by purchasing a Ford Flex. Among the myriad of standard features, Ford (and I’m sure many other manufacturers) has upgraded, compacted and simplified the key fob. This remote entry system used to be a separate piece of equipment dangling from my keychain. Now, it has been integrated into the key itself; it’s overall foot print is smaller and more intuitive — one item gets me into the vehicle.

I’m not trying to sell you a Flex. (You can follow @scottmonty for that.) The point here is that car designers push forward with all of their designs on a macro and micro level. There is always room for improvement on any interface (more times than not, there is lots of room).

Follow these eight recommendations to improve your user experience:

1. Plan your strategy and your user experience before you build
2. Develop a long-term strategy
3. Prototype — e.g. with Axure, or paper prototyping
4. Build a site using a malleable CMS, structure and design
5. Never assume what’s been done in the past is perfect
6. Test and analyze your interface
7. Listen to your users
8. Experiment, but try not to make your users think

Filed under: Design, User Experience by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: axure, CMS, don't make me think, flex, fob, ford, interface, interface design, key, paper prototyping, User Experience

I admire more and more the interface subtleties of the Wordpress admin interface. Overall, I would simplify the pages for faster management of posts and comments, but I’m sure there’s some plugins for that.

Specifically I like the flash-and-fade error and confirmation message after an action is taken.

Big, bold, and then it becomes unintrusive all by itself. (Did you miss it? Refresh this blog to see it again.) Note that I’ve changed the colors to match my blog to demonstrate the change from sparkling to faded. I’ll be recommending this type of message styling for many web sites in the future.

Filed under: Design, Usability, User Experience by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: css, sparkle and fade, Usability, User Experience, wordpress