Usability testing when you have no research budget
Five participants and an afternoon will tell you more about your product than a quarter of internal debate.
Topic
Every article we have published on design.
Five participants and an afternoon will tell you more about your product than a quarter of internal debate.
Software people use all day has different requirements from software people use occasionally. Optimising for the wrong one makes experts slower.
Tokens turn visual decisions into named values shared by design and code. Naming them well is the whole trick.
Most navigation reflects the organisation chart rather than user intent. Card sorting and tree testing fix that cheaply.
Forms are where most digital transactions succeed or fail. A handful of well-established practices lift completion measurably.
Design systems are abandoned for organisational reasons more often than design ones. A short assessment up front predicts which ones will survive.
Handoff fails when it is a moment rather than a collaboration. The fix is mostly about when engineers are involved.
Dark mode is not an inverted palette. Contrast, elevation and imagery all need separate consideration.
Buttons, labels, errors and empty states do more for usability than most visual decisions, and they are usually written last.