Error messages and their influence on user experience

Sometimes, errors just happen in web development as well as in any other thing that people are involved in. It’s normal – we’re all human. The question is how to communicate error messages in a way, which makes them not only “technically correct”, but also really understandable for humans and help them reach what they actually wanted to do on your website. Today, I found this article about The 4 H’s of writing error messages, which helps to write human, helpful, humorous and humble error messages. An article I really liked, check it out.

The importance of survey design for your online surveys

Today, I received an eMailĀ from the hosts of on online media congress I visited some weeks ago. While the first question just had two options to choose from, the second question (asking how I found out about that congress) already was a multiple choice question with over twenty checkboxes and a bunch of text fields to add further details. I immediately left the survey and I’m pretty sure a lot of other users also did. My opinion for a higher conversion of your online survey: Start with some simple questions that are really easy to answer and consider this as a warm-up, before asking questions that require a much higher level of consideration and involvement from your respondent.

What does usability mean for your products?

There are lots of factors which influence the usability of your product. So, which components have an influence? First of all, the product itself – how can you interact with the system, how does it feel, what does the system give you back? What comes with the product – e.g. manual, accessories, packaging? All this and many more topics are addressed in this article http://www.uselog.com/2010/05/1-usability-101-understand-what.html