Category Archives: Research Studies

Is Banner Blindness a Myth?

By Georgia Otto | Published: 04.10.2009
Banner Blindness is a term which refers to the theory that users ignore page elements that have typical traits of an advertisement. Animation is one trait of advertisements which users have allegedly learned to ignore. However, a 2003 study by Ping Zhang and Nelson Massad for the Ninth Americas Conference on Information Systems shows that: Animation [...]
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Why the “Fold” Doesn’t Matter Anymore

By Georgia Otto | Published: 03.13.2009
At a recent meeting of the NHUPA, Will Powley from Mad*Pow gave a 10-minute presentation called “Newspapers Have Folds, Websites Do Not“. In this presentation, a study by ClickTale was mentioned in support of the notion that the “fold” should no longer be a primary concern for designers.
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Designing Web Forms – Label Placement & Primary vs. Secondary Actions

By Georgia Otto | Published: 02.13.2009
As previously mentioned, user experience practitioners often rely on common sense, convention and past experience when making design decisions. Usability research may seem like overkill, but even when you’re sure of your assumptions, it’s always good to double check. For instance, Luke Wroblewski once wrote an article in which he provided some very sensible guidelines for [...]
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User Experience Research – A Study of Zebra Striping

By Georgia Otto | Published: 01.21.2009
Sometimes it seems that there isn’t enough collaboration between the academic side of User Experience and the applied side of it. UX practitioners need supporting evidence to back up their decisions when designing interfaces. Those who run studies about UX need to know that the questions they’re researching are relevant in actual practice. Often I discuss [...]
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