All posts by nomensa

23rd December 2010 by nomensa | User Experience

When the web was young it was almost enough just to have a website. It didn’t need to be great, good design was very much an option, as was consistency or any thought about how someone might want to use it. Over the years we’ve seen how this viewpoint has changed. In an extremely congested [...]

15th December 2010 by nomensa | User Experience, Web Design

The average website these days is a collage of CMS-Driven content, rich media and social media updates; users can interact with its pages in so many more ways than simply navigating to a page and reading the content. With more Flash, more media and more javascript functionality per page, the overall user experience has improved, [...]

15th October 2010 by nomensa | Nomensa thinks

The Internet-enabled TV has been around for a little while, but the fight for control of the living room has begun in earnest now that Google has joined the fray. Instinctively Internet on TV makes sense, after all many people admit to using a laptop, netbook or iPad when watching TV, so why not bring that experience to the TV itself? However, I can’t help feeling that in the rush to get the web onto the widescreen nobody has properly stopped to think about whether it really matches with how anyone uses their TV or consumes information from the Internet. In the UX industry this is known as the “context of use”. If you fail to consider this properly, you end up with a product that isn’t fit for purpose.

1st July 2010 by nomensa | User Experience

In order to display error messages on forms, you need to consider the following four basic rules:

1. The error message needs to be short and meaningful

2. The placement of the message needs to be associated with the field

3. The message style needs to be separated from the style of the field labels and instructions

4. The style of the error field needs to be different than the normal field

By combining these four rules, it is possible to provide the necessary information to users where they have made mistakes on filling in forms and how to rectify them quickly and easily. This will encourage and help users to continue with their journey on the site, reducing the number of basket abandonment, not registering on a site, making enquiries about an application form and so forth.

2nd November 2009 by nomensa | Web Design

Most websites nowadays incorporate some kind of community aspect which allows users to provide feedback to the site’s owners and to each other. In fact, ‘building community’ is one of the most important aspects of any modern website. Websites that focus on their community or group nature are described as being social sites, an umbrella term that can cover a great number of disparate services. This article will describe how Developers can utilise social design patterns on a site in order to promote or dull certain behaviours in an online community.

1st October 2009 by nomensa | User Experience

Web analytics involves collecting and analysing a number of metrics to better understand the user experience offered by a website.
For example, by using services such as Google Analytics it is possible to collect information on how long people spend on the website, how many people leave the website instantly, which websites people arrive from and where people are dropping out in key user journeys.

4th August 2009 by nomensa | Web Design

Choosing a CMS is a long-term commitment. You are choosing how your site will be driven and how it will be updated. What your CMS can do affects what you can do. When selecting a CMS, you are committing your content to be stored within this specific system; your data is then manipulated (‘normalised’) into formats suitable for the system’s storage mechanism. From this point onwards, any future decision to switch CMS providers will now need to include the laborious (and often expensive) task of data migration. It is clear to see that choosing a CMS is a commitment and needs to be carefully considered.

30th January 2009 by nomensa | User Experience

The current economic climate is a difficult time for any business, and for any individual. So why is it that while one time high rolling retailers such as Zavvi and Woolworths have both gone into administration, web-based retailers such as Play.com and Amazon have both just seen some of their best figures to date. Although it is certain that there are many reasons for this, this article will delve into the e-commerce world to look at website usability as a factor in the success or failure of a business.

Against the background of poor sales and failing retailers you might wonder whether companies can afford to focus on the usability of e-commerce. After all if large retailers with an established web presence can go to the wall, shouldn’t companies be merely focusing their efforts on staying in business?