Online marketers and user experience
4 things online marketers should know about user experience (UX) We found the final point about download times interesting. I know that this is a proverbial tough pill to swallow: perceived speed is...
View ArticleWhy we must augment focus groups
UX myth #21: People can tell you what they want I have written and spoken before about the fact that we cannot always take users’ word for it when they tell us what they want from a website. What...
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Improving user experience and fostering change
This is the second of a series of reflections on this year’s Institutional Web Management Workshop. Read an introduction and the other posts. Following Ross Ferguson’s inspiring talk, further food for...
View ArticleWhy audience-based navigation does not necessarily work
‘Hey, you there’: the trouble with audience-based navigation Gov.uk shared something very interesting about their experience with audience-based labels in their webpages. They found that people do not...
View ArticleDon’t break the user experience
Breaking web design conventions = breaking the user experience The esteemed Nielsen Norman Group has turned its attention towards the controversial redesign of the Bucknell University website. The...
View ArticleWhy simplicity improves the user experience for all
The myth of the sophisticated user Our goal as designers is to make things as easy as possible for the user. When we set out to simplify content and convert jargon terms into plain English, we are...
View ArticleThe importance of typography
How we read Good typography is an underrated element of the user experience. Good typography makes content easier to read, which is why we have rules about how the text is laid out on the page. It’s up...
View ArticleHamburger menus perform poorly
Why we banished the hamburger menu from our iPhone app The hamburger menu is one of the oldest icons in the history of graphical user interfaces. It was included in the Xerox Star, one of the first...
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Why is the user important?
As we may have mentioned a few times already, the digital communications team is committed to a user centred approach to our work: whether that be research, design, content or build. We have placed...
View ArticleEthical social research online
The trust engineers I enjoyed this recent episode of Radiolab, which looked how the internet has given social scientists an unprecedented ability to conduct social experiments, which then helps us...
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User experience feedback
Here at the Digital Communications team we believe in taking a user-centred approach to our work, and we’ve written a lot about this. We endeavour to put the user at the centre of our decision making...
View ArticleThe digital pattern library is platform agnostic
At the University of St Andrews we have a digital framework called the digital pattern library (DPL), which is used to make the University digital presence consistent across the website. We primarily...
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TweetDeck for Windows is dead—what it taught me about the importance of data...
TweetDeck for Windows RIP As I write this, last week Twitter pulled the plug on TweetDeck for Windows, forcing PC users into their browsers to use the web version instead. For at least the last six...
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Identifying your website’s Top Tasks
At the beginning of the month I attended a seminar hosted by User Experience expert, author, and speaker Gerry McGovern on measuring the customer experience with Top Task management for websites. What...
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Launching the new site structure
On Thursday 6 July, the digital communications team will be changing the structure of the University’s website. All academic information that currently resides under Study at St Andrews will be moved...
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Usability testing around the University
The digital communications team has been conducting usability testing since 2015. Usability testing allows us to evaluate the design of a webpage, or more specifically, a particular process such as...
View ArticleTop task performance indicators
This is a follow-up to a previous post I wrote on “Identifying your website’s Top Tasks” following a seminar I attended hosted by User Experience expert, author, and speaker Gerry McGovern. This post...
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Study at St Andrews: usability results
As part of the external website project, we are reconfiguring the current Study at St Andrews section to improve the prospective student’s experience. Digicomms recently conducted testing specifically...
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Mobile first and responsive design
The core design mission of the new St Andrews website is to cater for mobile devices, as these are rapidly becoming the dominant medium for web. While most organisations still commission a website to...
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Why is consistency important in web design?
Consistency is a golden-rule in design. To provide a quality experience to your users it is essential that you are consistent in both design and content of your websites. Consistency is the biggest...
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