Online banking is ubiquitous. Banking websites and apps are an integral part of our financial lives. They are no longer seen as merely nice-to-have features of a banking relationship. Consumers have come to expect the ability to do simple and complex banking transactions from their computers or phones. This digital transformation especially accelerated during the pandemic, when the number of in-person transactions steeply dropped. Online banking platforms have drastically changed the way people manage their finances. However, users may face issues when using banking websites and apps, such as ..read more

The time it takes to click on an element on a page is a function of its size (Fitts’ Law). People can only keep 7 ± 2 items in short-term memory (Miller’s Magic Number). When multiple similar objects are presented, people will prefer the most different one (Von Restorff Effect). People like to have laws named after them (Sauro’s Law). There’s something compelling about succinct “laws” to help make design decisions. Following laws or conventions can help prevent designers from making certain mistakes. And though making graphs is hardly the same design activity as building web applications, it’s ..read more

Beyond speculation and hyperbole, we’ve been exploring how ChatGPT can be used in UX research. In two earlier articles, we conducted analyses that suggested ChatGPT may have a role, given the right research context. In the first analysis, we found that ChatGPT-4 was able to assist researchers in sorting open-ended comments. In the second analysis, we assessed how well ChatGPT’s card sorting results matched with the results made by a group of users attempting the same card sort. We found that ChatGPT could sort items into groups and appropriately name the groups in a way comparable to the group ..read more

Unless you plan to survey every member of your target population, you’ll need to work with a sample. But even in cases where you can survey everyone, you might not want to because of survey fatigue and costs. What’s more, most populations are fluid. There may be only a hundred users of a financial product this month, but what about new users who join next month or next year? Sampling a portion of your population is by far the most common approach when conducting surveys—especially because, unlike the U.S. census, answering a survey is not required by law. When sampling, it’s good to have some ..read more

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is one of the oldest standardized UX questionnaires. John Brooke is now retired; should the questionnaire he developed almost 40 years ago accompany him on the beach with a piña colada? After all, the SUS was developed when there were green-screen computer monitors. How can it possibly apply to mobile apps or VR headsets? Technology has evolved, shouldn’t our questionnaires? Language certainly evolves. Table 1 shows two versions of the SUS items: the currently most-used version (left) and a translation into Middle English (right). Now we’re not aware of any squ ..read more

Would having a system for classifying usability problems be helpful to UX researchers and designers? Would it reduce the evaluator effect? Categorization frameworks have been around for decades, but in our experience, they haven’t seen a lot of adoption by commercial development teams. There are probably a few reasons for this: they might not be perceived as helpful, they can be difficult to learn, and they take time to use. For a method to be valid (in this case, to improve problem detection and correction), it first needs to be reliable. That is, independent evaluators using a categorization ..read more

You’ve decided to conduct a survey. Congratulations! Now it’s time to get into the details. In our experience, one of the most soul-crushing difficulties of running surveys is the process of defining and finding participants. In this article, we’ll go over some of the logistical details you’ll want to sort out before launching your survey. We’ll answer the following questions: How should you define target participants? Where do you find participants? How should you use online panels? How do you get people to participate? How should you compensate participants? How to Define Survey Participan ..read more

In 1916, a leading periodical called The Literary Digest polled its large subscriber base of hundreds of thousands of readers and successfully predicted the winner of that year’s presidential election. The magazine repeated the poll in 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932, correctly predicting the winner each time—five successful election predictions in a row. In 1936, its poll had Kansas Governor Alfred Landon as the overwhelming winner. But that year, Franklin Roosevelt won easily, losing only two states to Landon. The magnitude of the magazine’s error (off by almost 20 percentage points!) allegedly d ..read more

Choosing furniture, whether you’re moving into a new home or just updating your space, can feel like a daunting task. Spending hours browsing one furniture store after another may be overwhelming and time consuming. Many shoppers are skipping the brick-and-mortar furniture stores and turning to the web in search of stylish and competitively priced furniture options. In 2023, the United States led the market for furniture e-commerce worldwide, with estimated revenues exceeding 90 billion dollars. The benefits of shopping for furniture online include access to a wider range of options, the abili ..read more

In a typical week, we are asked to complete surveys on everything: our most recent restaurant experience, our interaction with an airline’s customer service department, and our recollection of our last online purchase, to name just a few. Surveys are ubiquitous. Not surprisingly, many people hold strong opinions about their proper usage in applied research generally and in UX research specifically. Surveys aren’t going anywhere because they are an easy way to collect input from many people quickly. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be improved. Improvement starts with a good foundation of surve ..read more