They’re probably more than aware of where users are struggling — Customer Support can be one of the most significant untapped resources for user feedback if you know what questions to ask them. I learned this when I couldn’t interview users for a product I was designing. I was designing an application meant to assist cancer patients after their diagnosis. When…

Hamburger menus often end up as a navigation dead end — The more I’ve gotten used to designing mobile websites, the more I’ve realized that hamburger menus are like junk drawers. Hamburger menus are often thought of as a one-stop shop for mobile navigation: the hamburger menu is the most straightforward and low-effort approach to mobile navigation. However, sticking all your…

Complex home page issues can often be addressed with quick user testing — Sometimes you can get so engrossed in the other parts of a website that you forget about the user’s first step: the home page. Surprisingly, a home page can often turn into a dense and hard-to-understand page because it’s valuable real estate. It’s not the fault of one person in…

Think like an architect to get your team on board with a re-design — When you start a re-design, one of the best things to do is to understand what currently exists. Sometimes, you might realize that your product might be suffering from feature bloat: something started well-meaningly, then ideas kept being added on until it became unwieldy. In these cases, you don’t just…

Cards seem simple, but making them requires thinking about your content. — Sometimes, the content you leave until last can give you the most issues. That’s something that I found out when I started working more with cards. They’re often easy to leave as blocks of lorem ipsum until you’re ready with the content, but doing so can result in many issues…

Your design fitting on mobile screens doesn’t mean it fits mobile user needs. — Responsive Web Design is a fantastic tool that can solve resolution headaches, but with it comes a need to re-visit basic user research questions. The best way to think about “Responsive Design” is like water: it will fit into whatever you pour it in. You don’t have to re-design your…

Understanding what beginners, intermediate and expert users need — I never fully understood one aspect of personas, technological expertise, until it was the focus of my design.

Three factors that help persuade your users that your organization is worth engaging with — I realized that I didn’t know much about garnering trust as an organization until I had to design an “About Us” page. “About Us” pages are weird, especially since many people might not pay attention to them while using a company’s site. It’s not surprising to think it’s a low…

How to address ‘doorknob questions’ that might give you crucial users insights — Sometimes, the last fifteen seconds of a user interview can be the most shocking and insightful. One of your last user interview or testing questions is likely to be, “Is there anything else you would like to tell me about?” Most of the time, the user will likely say no…