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Website Personas: A Practitioner’s Guide: The Mental Model(2/6)

Website Personas: A Practitioner’s Guide: The Mental Model(2/6)

Mental models can mean different things to different people. Within the context of persona development, we use the term “mental model” to describe a cause-and-effect sequence that is essentially mechanical (predictable) in its operation. The mental model we use is…    Read More »

Website Personas: A Practitioner’s Guide – Introduction (1/6)

Website Personas: A Practitioner’s Guide – Introduction (1/6)

You are about to embark on a major site redesign. Your team has come up with a raft of ideas, covering everything from exotic product simulators to a new color palette. How do you evaluate the ideas? You can’t afford…    Read More »

Single View of the Customer (SVC): Enabling Frictionless Commerce and Enduring Loyalty

Single View of the Customer (SVC): Enabling Frictionless Commerce and Enduring Loyalty

Back in the days when dragons roamed the earth and men routinely wore suits to work, I used to shop at Jos. A Bank. As the years went by, however, business culture changed and my need for dress shirts, ties,…    Read More »

The Importance of UX Research in the Coming On-Demand Era

The Importance of UX Research in the Coming On-Demand Era

McKinsey & Company recently published an article in which they outline the future of consumer experience (The Coming Era of ‘On-demand’ Marketing). In the article, the authors state that the coupling of emerging technologies and consumers’ new on-demand attitudes will…    Read More »

Product Simplicity, Cognitive Overhead and Drunk Participants

Product Simplicity, Cognitive Overhead and Drunk Participants

Occasionally we’ll come across an article that speaks to the tenants of user experience testing that we hold most dear.  This article comes from Techcrunch and it was written by the founder of the iPhone app, Bump. Side note: Bump is…    Read More »

Is Your Site Meeting the Needs of Your Future Customers?

Is Your Site Meeting the Needs of Your Future Customers?

Did you know that over a quarter of your site visitors are probably 1st time visitors? Did you know that 1st time visitors are less successful than all other visitors to your site? Understanding who your 1st time visitors are,…    Read More »

An Intro to User Experience Testing

An Intro to User Experience Testing

As a company in the user experience industry for 25 years, we sometimes take for granted that many organizations and people are still unfamiliar with exactly what user experience testing is.  We also understand that with all of the information…    Read More »

Personas and Use Cases

Personas and Use Cases

LivePerson, provider of online help to e-commerce sites, recently published a global study on the user experience.  The findings, as you might expect, underpin the need for their service. Speed of abandonment: 71% expect to be able to access help…    Read More »

A lesson in Andrew Mason’s firing

A lesson in Andrew Mason’s firing

March 1 saw Groupon’s founder and CEO Andrew Mason fired. He tweeted a very humble farewell letter, within which was a piece of advice to his colleagues. Here’s what he wrote: “If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple…    Read More »

Webinar Highlight: 10 Things to Know About Tablet Users

Webinar Highlight: 10 Things to Know About Tablet Users

In this session, we share 10 valuable insights about today’s tablet user. We will offer you a glimpse of not only who they are but how the tablet device fits into their ever increasing stable of digital devices – e.g.,…    Read More »

Classical Usability

Classical Usability

As we embark on a new year that positively seethes with potential, it seems appropriate to offer a blog post that somehow transcends the type of utilitarian posts we generally serve up.  We hope this story serves that purpose.  Please…    Read More »

WA(RP)® and Wufoo: Forms on Any Page

WA(RP)® and Wufoo: Forms on Any Page

Here at Usability Sciences, we find ourselves in need of new forms relatively often. Whether we’re trying to capture feedback on a specific page or attempting to provide support for a product, we can always find a need for a…    Read More »

Smartphone, Tablet, or PC?

Smartphone, Tablet, or PC?

Last week we posted an infographic showing which devices customers prefer for different activities such as reading books, listening to music, or editing spreadsheets. Today we we’d like to share another infographic.  This one speaks more for demographics of customers in…    Read More »

Which Device is Preferred?

Which Device is Preferred?

The interaction points with customers are changing.  One of the more recent additions to this is the tablet which followed the smartphone, and the PC before that. We asked a large demographic where are they browsing, what types of devices…    Read More »

Amplifying the Customer’s Voice — so the CEO Can Act on It

Amplifying the Customer’s Voice — so the CEO Can Act on It

CEOs typically devote much of their time to analyzing their company’s financial data and operating metrics.  We suggest, however, that they could profit more by installing feedback review as a part of the formal executive process. Last week I undertook…    Read More »

Dynamic Forms As Easy as 1 2 3

Dynamic Forms As Easy as 1 2 3

WA(RP)® was designed primarily to facilitate online market research, but we quickly realized that it had a vast array of possible applications.  We knew there was a category of DIY tools that primarily focused on building online forms.  What makes…    Read More »

High Level View Of Your Users: WA(RP)® + ClickTale

High Level View Of Your Users: WA(RP)® + ClickTale

Using WA(RP)® To Deploy ClickTale On Command. ClickTale is a great tool for getting a visual understanding of what people are doing on your website.  Whether it’s individual visits showing a replay of what the user did with mouse movements…    Read More »

The iPhone 5: A Final Review

The iPhone 5: A Final Review

iPhone 5 Speed: The increased speed that 4G LTE has provided changed how I used my digital devices over the first few days of ownership.  First, while I suspect I will regret this once my first bill arrives, I turned…    Read More »

An iPhone 5 Review Coming from an Ex Android User

An iPhone 5 Review Coming from an Ex Android User

Last week we posted a short review of the iPhone 5 from Matt.  To continue our short review series we’ve got some great insights from another one of our team members, Scott Davis.  Check it out below, and if you’re…    Read More »

A User Experience Analysts Take on the iPhone 5

A User Experience Analysts Take on the iPhone 5

As everyone is aware by now, the iPhone 5 released last week.  Along with it came an updated iOS in addition to a new charging cable.  We wanted to talk about the iPhone more simply and with less of an…    Read More »

Simple Website Research: WA(RP)® & SurveyMonkey Integration

Simple Website Research: WA(RP)® & SurveyMonkey Integration

Have you ever had a question about your customers that could be quickly answered with a simple SurveyMonkey survey on your website? Have you ever wanted to poll users about a new feature on your site to get opinions—and data—fast?…    Read More »

Guest Post from Clicktale: See the Whole User Picture

Guest Post from Clicktale: See the Whole User Picture

Do you wish you knew more about what your visitors actually did on your website? When they come to your homepage, do you know what they actually look at and what they ignore? Are they seeing what you want them…    Read More »

WA(RP)®: Small Tag, Huge Business Impact

WA(RP)®: Small Tag, Huge Business Impact

One of our customers is a pure-play e-commerce business. They wanted to quantify interest in a radical new service option. To gain competitive advantage, they needed answers quickly — much faster than it would take if they gathered responses through…    Read More »

WA(RP)®…It’s got teeth

WA(RP)®…It’s got teeth

We’ve got something new coming, and we know you’re going to love it. WA(RP)® is a brand-new product that provides enterprise-level research features to websites of all sizes. It also works great with many of the tools you already know…    Read More »

What Do You Measure?

What Do You Measure?

Three key questions: What do you measure? Why do you measure it?  How do you measure it? Look at these numbers. They come from six e-commerce sites.  They represent metrics collected from the sites’ most important visitor segment – those…    Read More »

What’s in a Picture?

What’s in a Picture?

This picture is intended to illustrate the flexibility of our WARP survey technology.  It shows four different types of surveys running concurrently on the same site.  Each survey serves a different purpose and is presented under different conditions to visitors…    Read More »

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Dilbert on Usability

Dilbert on Usability

Brand Trust

Trust Is the New Black… Again

Trust Is the New Black… Again

In May of 2010, I published a white paper entitled “Trust is the New Black.”  I’ve been measuring, training, speaking, and writing about trust for decades; it’s the best indicator of health in one-to-one relationships.  These days, every brand is…    Read More »

Mobile Testing

Best Practices for Mobile Site Checkout

Best Practices for Mobile Site Checkout

With the constant evolution of smart phones and mobile devices, users are expecting more efficient and intuitive functionality from mobile websites. This is especially true for those mobile sites designed for touch screen devices. According to a 2009 whitepaper from…    Read More »

Usability

Back Me Up

Back Me Up

According to Jakob Nielsen, “The Back button is the lifeline of the Web user and the second-most used navigation feature (after following hypertext links). Users happily know that they can try anything on the Web and always be saved by…    Read More »

User Experience

Sizing Up the Competition, Getting the Most Out of Comparative Testing

A new year is upon us, and perhaps you’re thinking it’s time to size up the competition and dominate your space. At Usability Sciences, one of the services we offer is the Comparative Test. We use this methodology anytime our…    Read More »