The Orbiter

We changed the pagination method because we feel the “View More” button provides a much better user experience.
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• You don’t need to test more than 5 people at a time.
• Test early and often.
• Focus on specific flows.

Usability experts have an annoying shared trait: they tend to answer a lot of questions by saying it depends. Each website’s unique content, audience, goals, and style ensure that there are no universal solutions to even the most basic questions. This means that there is only one way to know if your site really works for users: you have to test it. Fortunately, if conducted right, these tests shouldn’t require a lot of money or time. Read More >

A web design company, an advertising agency and a software vendor walk into a client’s office. The client asks, “How often should we redesign our site?” The agency replies “two years.” The software guy says “three years.” The website designer says… Read More >

Searches are an extremely important feature for most sites, as the first step of every user task is finding where to begin. A well-implemented text search generally does a good job when people know exactly what they want, but it’s much less effective if they don’t. To help these individuals, it’s best to start with the assumption that your users are human. Read More >

By Andy Crestodina

I spend a lot of time talking about websites.  I’m always talking to clients, potential clients, job seekers, industry pros and my fellow Orbiteers and I’ve noticed a few things about how people talk about websites: people use a lot of fancy words.  Naturally, the web has brought about a lot of new things that needed new words.  But somehow it also led to more technical words for some simple ideas. Read More >

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Jason Santa Maria and saw his presentaion at An Event Apart:Chicago He had a really great message about graphic design on the web that struck me. He said, “design can’t not communicate,” (a quote from David Carson). It made me think about how a lot of people out there are cranking out website after website in an assembly line style.

Common misconception: We can put some links up here, and throw some stock photos in there…add a little bit of ‘pop’ and ‘pizazz’ and miraculously we have a nice website. NO! Wrong answer. Read More >