How important and predictive is the first click on a website? Some earlier research by Bob Bailey and Cari Wolfson, conducted between 2006 and 2009 across a dozen studies, found an interesting result. If a user’s first click on a website was down one of the optimal paths for the intended task, 87% of those
Card sorting is a popular activity that researchers use to understand how people group and associate items such as products or information. Using a research platform like MUIQ®, card sorting is typically done electronically and often without an attending moderator. One advantage of digital over physical card sorting is that it’s easier to add images
One of the most popular UX research methods is Think Aloud (TA) usability testing. Having participants speak their thoughts while working on tasks helps researchers identify usability problems and potential fixes. After a TA session, many UX research teams also collect study-level metrics. Study-level metrics are typically asked only once in a study (unlike task-level
Smartphones are ubiquitous in modern life globally and in the US. Almost all Americans have smartphones (85%), with US sales expected to exceed 74 billion dollars. But people don’t just own them, they (we) use them—a lot! Average monthly data use worldwide is expected to increase from 19GB in 2023 to 46GB in 2028 (55GB
Card sorting is a popular UX method. Developers often use card sorting to restructure the navigation (Information Architecture) of a website or a software’s menu structure. But sorting cards isn’t necessarily the most intuitive exercise. It takes concentration and time to think about where to place cards and what to call the groups (for open
How do you measure tech savviness? Abstract constructs such as usability, trustworthiness, intelligence, and desirability can be difficult to measure. The same applies to tech savviness. But to paraphrase Potter Stewart, we know a tech-savvy person when we see one. Tech savviness should matter to UX researchers. When we measure an experience, we don’t want
When working with UX metrics (e.g., rating scale data) you need to consider both the average and the variability of the responses. People have different experiences with interfaces, and sometimes they interpret items in rating scales differently. This variability is typically measured with the standard deviation. The standard deviation is a key ingredient in computing
One of the most popular UX research methods is Think Aloud (TA) usability testing. Having participants speak their thoughts while working on tasks helps researchers identify usability problems and potential fixes. But does the added burden of speaking while attempting a task make the experience harder and affect perceptions of the website or app being
How do we know what a good measure is? We have written extensively about the benefits of using standardized measures such as questionnaires to measure the user experience. We have also written about the processes and methods used to build a standardized questionnaire. But where do these methods come from? Are they the best ones?
What is the impact if you sample a lot of your population in a survey? Many statistical calculations—for example, confidence intervals, statistical comparisons (e.g., the two-sample t-test), and their sample size estimates—assume that your sample is a tiny fraction of your population. But what if you have a relatively modest population size (e.g., IT decision-makers
