I've seen several articles from the UX Movement site over the past couple of weeks, and to me they all suffer from the same problem.
Is the site designed for those who apply these lessons to share their opinions, or it supposed to be more rigorous? Most of the articles could use a healthy dose of A/B testing to support their claims, patio11 style.
I agree. Where's the meat and potatoes? Folks around these parts love some multivariate and/or A/B testing, plenty of fresh looking graphs and some detailed analysis.
Come one guys, if you submit to Hacker News at least put a little effort into your posts.
Update: Don't mean to sound brash but I'm tired of folks telling me what I should/should not do without giving me some detailed CR datasets, including some demographic data (if possible).
And yet all kinds of claims are made on Hacker News, like how to be an entrepreneur or the best way to run a start-up, and no-one ever asks for the data. It seems like this demand for data is highly selective and used to justify the lazy attitude toward UX that plagues the majority of software. It's a dodge that I see all the time - a UX person proposes some improvement, a developer says "Well I don't think that's a good user experience, we should really A/B test it, oh wait, we don't have the time for that right now, that's too bad..." And the proposed improvement is something totally obvious, like the one in this article: buttons should have accurate, non-generic labels. You have to wonder if someone who disagree with something that obvious is arguing in good faith, or just doesn't like being told what to do.
I agree that people use "show me the data" as an argumentative strategy in a selective fashion. That said, "show me the data" to "X is the best way to run a startup" is fundamentally non-interesting, because typically that claim borders on philosophy and when it doesn't there is no convenient test you can do to get actionable data.
But UX improvements about button calls to action? Come on. Anyone here can test this, in less than two minutes of work. You could have an interesting discussion about metrics selection, but arguments which collapse to "I have an aesthetic preference for this alternative" leave me a little unsatisfied.
I appreciate your honesty and feedback. However, every article offers thorough and detailed reasoning of why something is suggested as a best practice. The reasoning is key.
It's also important to remember that just because it's a best practice does not mean it will apply for every design in every case, which is why testing should be done on your own with your own site if you feel the need.
We believe that picking ideas apart through and through with the use of experience, logic and intuition with brilliant design thinkers is the only way to arrive at something substantial and meaningful.
Simply accepting something because it has been tested or researched is not good enough, and does not engage the mind. Independently thinking about an idea with other independent thinkers is the only true way to arrive at something meaningful. While this is probably quite difficult, we are up to the challenge.
Meaning no disrespect, but I've on occasion had the situation where independent thinkers doing independent thinking suggest that A is the Acknowledged Right Way To Do Things. The example which leaps instantly to mind is consistent navigation placement: your nav bar should be visible, consistent, and always in the same place throughout the website, right?
Amazon hides sitewide navigation during checkout. I don't go quite so far, but I've tested a few variations, including A: sitewide nav and B: one-off nav which includes only things that I feel are likely to increase conversion.
B crushes A in tests on my site, to the tune of "would cost me thousands of bucks a year to do A instead". Do I get a subsidy from the Right Honorable Guild Of Independent Thinkers for doing it the correct way? Because doing it the way that actually works is really tempting.
That's all well and good, but we'd still prefer some more data backing up your claims. The claims made in your article on how people read text were refuted by a paper linked here on HN. That alone makes your future articles and the claims made in them somewhat questionable.
>> However, every article offers thorough and detailed reasoning of why something is suggested as a best practice. The reasoning is key.
I could show you 10 thorough and detailed product pitches from seasoned and experienced people for Farmville. 8 out of those 10 pitches turn out to be utter failures in the field.
Hacker News has little patience for armchair theory. Why do you think patio11 is so highly regarded? It's because he shows us why our rational thinking about users is wrong straight from the trenches.
This isn't "armchair theory". Read the article again. The reasons are solid and the end result is what it says it is.
The article isn't saying if you do your search this way you will sell a billion products. Of course if that was the claim some statistical proof would be necessary. All the article is doing is offering a simpler and cleaner approach to search. That's all.
Where are the goods? I seriously doubt it makes a difference, but would be willing to be proven wrong with data.
For reference:
amazon: go button
facebook, twitter, ning: "search" in box, magnifying glass button
ebay, zappos: search button
reddit: no button at all. This one's a bad idea unless you only have power users (even then, my browser has hiccoughed on <enter> form submission more than a few times)
Personally I like buttons w/ a magnifying glass icon. The problem I have is with search fields that have no button and assume users know to hit <enter>. Responding to the return keypress is a good usability practice, but there should also be a button to click. A good example is stackoverflow.com. I've entered a search term and, by reflex, clicked the Ask Question button because it's in the vicinity.
I'm not sold on placeholder text for search fields. You want users to find and use the search as quickly as possible. In an area of constant noise, negative space is king. Which of the search fields do you find quickest: http://cl.ly/06279e6c96b89ebceaf2
I'm not sure either way when it comes to form fields. Placeholder text has a stronger argument there because more explanation and less attention-grabbing is necessary.
Eh, seems like they've got some emotional reason for disliking "Go". I've never encountered a person[1] who doesn't see a single field + a button that says "search" or "go", and can't figure out how to use them.
[1]: this assumes they're at least somewhat familiar with websites. To a total web newbie? Yeah, "search" is probably better. But it's also bigger.
He's a retired industrial engineer, and he avoided computers his whole life. Now that's he's retired, he's using the computer for communication and dating services. It has been quite a learning experience for him, and it has given me a look into the mind of non-techies that is way more extreme than I thought possible.
Even after a couple years of using the web, he still has trouble with basic ideas and terminology. And he's not alone. I've met others that had the same issues he does, but at the time I just assumed they weren't very bright. Now I know it's something else.
Sadly, I still don't know how to solve the issues.
What about having a "Go" button, but making it wider by setting its width via css?
That obsoletes half of the article's suggestion. This leaves only one reason to have "Search" instead of "Go": saves you a label. This isn't a big deal IMO. Also, I'm not sure, but it's possible having a label is better, since it comes before the search bar instead of after. This might make it more obvious for users (but then again, maybe not; someone should run some A/B tests on this issue!)
Is the site designed for those who apply these lessons to share their opinions, or it supposed to be more rigorous? Most of the articles could use a healthy dose of A/B testing to support their claims, patio11 style.