Article archive
Below is a list of all our previous articles in reverse chronological order. Enjoy!
Customers Perceive Only Parts of a Checkout-page as Being Secure
Apr 28, 2010 (1 comment)
In our latest usability study on e-commerce checkouts we made an interesting observation: several of the test subjects talked about certain parts of the checkout-page as being “secure” ... Read this article
Google Chrome and the Importance of Good Copywriting
Apr 16, 2010
If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser and access a page that isn’t in English (or whatever your default language is) you see a message saying something along the lines of “... Read this article
Handling Technical Glitches Without Losing Sales
Apr 10, 2010
During our latest usability study we used live websites which caused a number of our test subjects to run into technical errors or site maintenance. In 8 out of 9 instances (89%), this led to insta... Read this article
How Google Keep their iPhone Visitors Coming Back
Mar 30, 2010
Google’s mobile interface for Google Buzz sports a brilliant call to action that is customized specifically to the mobile phone you’re using. When you go to the mobile version of Googl... Read this article
People Think Registration Leads to "Spam"
Mar 25, 2010
Customers hate signing up for an account when all they want to do is buy a product from your e-commerce store. One of the reasons people hate registration so much is because they think it will sig... Read this article
Contextual Words like "Continue" are Usability Poison
Mar 15, 2010 (2 comments)
The word “continue” is contextual, so depending on your frame of mind, “continue” can have many different meanings. During our latest usability study, 3 out of 10 test subj... Read this article
Review of Rework
Mar 02, 2010
The short version: Rework is the most important business book I’ve read in months. Not because of the solutions presented in the book, but because of the questions Rework force you to think a... Read this article
Silverback: Screen Recording for Usability Studies
Feb 24, 2010 (2 comments)
When doing qualitative usability studies it’s a great idea to record your sessions with the users. Silverback is a software application made specifically for this. We purchased Silverback fo... Read this article
Why People Buy Online
Feb 14, 2010 (1 comment)
There’s 3 reasons people buy online as opposed to offline: selection, convenience and price. You should deliver on at least one of them.* 1) Selection Limited shelf space isn’t much of... Read this article
People Still Double-Click Online
Feb 04, 2010 (2 comments)
During our most recent research study we once again found that a surprisingly large number (more than 50%) of the people aged 40+ still double-click on links and form buttons online. This gives us ... Read this article
A Preparation Checklist for Conducting Web Usability Studies
Jan 26, 2010
Doing small and simple usability studies usually give you a great return on investment – testing as little as 5 subjects can yield up to 85% of all usability problems on a site according to a... Read this article
Links and the Visited State
Jan 12, 2010 (3 comments)
The visited state on links is one of the biggest opportunities in web design – it’s basically personalized history for each of your visitors, enabled by default! Yet, many web designers... Read this article
Video: CAPTCHA Done Wrong
Dec 13, 2009
When we stumbled upon Netflix’s home page the other day we immediately thought that this would be a good showcase for how not to do your CAPTCHA. Which is exactly what we do in this video: Ne... Read this article
Decoration - the Enemy of Good Web Design
Dec 03, 2009 (6 comments)
When you ask some web “designers” why they added a certain element to their site they’ll answer “because it looks good”. These people are of course artists, not design... Read this article
Making a Slow Site Appear Fast
Nov 28, 2009
A recent study by Forrester and Akamai showed that 47% of your website visitors expects your page to load in less than 2 seconds, and 40% will abandon if it takes 3+ seconds. So how does a site li... Read this article
Video: Designing a new Website
Nov 21, 2009
To finish off the “Designing a new Website” series, we’ve put together a video for you where we walk through this site, explaining our thoughts and principles behind some of its f... Read this article
How to Lower Your Chargeback Rate
Nov 13, 2009 (4 comments)
You’ve just made a sale in you e-commerce store. But 27 days down the road you are faced with a chargeback request from your merchant account provider. You’ve not only lost the sale, yo... Read this article
CAPTCHA Can Kill Your Conversion Rate
Nov 04, 2009 (5 comments)
More and more websites are using CAPTCHA to avoid spam, but they’re typically bad for your business as CAPTCHAs have major usability problems. Most visitors simply get them wrong. Why CAPTCH... Read this article
Designing a new Website #3: Finished Layout
Oct 24, 2009
(This is part three in a series of posts about designing a new webpage from scratch, before you have any concrete data to guide your design-decisions.) In this post we’ll take your design dra... Read this article
Subliminally Directing Visitor Attention Towards Your Page's Goal
Oct 20, 2009 (1 comment)
Today we’re going to take a look at a technique which can be used to subliminally direct your visitor’s attention towards the goal of your page. It is a technique that’s not only ... Read this article
Designing a new Website #2: Design Drafts
Oct 13, 2009 (1 comment)
(This is part two in a series of posts about designing a new webpage from scratch, before you have any concrete data to guide your design-decisions.) With your priority lists in hand, it’s time to ... Read this article
Designing a new Website #1: Priority Lists
Oct 10, 2009 (2 comments)
(This is part one in a series of posts about designing a new webpage from scratch, before you have any concrete data to guide your design-decisions.) When you’re designing a new page the most... Read this article
How I Increased Newsletter Sign-Up Rate 274%
Oct 04, 2009
One year ago I got quite a big surprise when looking at the statistics of a newly launched website: out of 2,000 visitors, 32% clicked a link leading them to the page they were already on. But why?... Read this article
Conversion Design: the Real Purpose of Web Design
Sep 29, 2009 (8 comments)
What exactly do Toyota, Nike and Apple expect in return when they throw millions at their designers? “Something really pretty; something beautiful” one might say. True, but when we thin... Read this article
