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UX Check (uxcheck.co)
207 points by mhr_online on Jan 13, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 44 comments



This is really handy.

As I do more management (yuck) I find myself having to put together reams of commented screenshots all the time. My process for this is piecemeal - but this would definitely help. Thanks!

A few suggestions:

1. HTML, Google Docs, or PDF output would be faaaar more useful than Word. I'm actually surprised you used Word here. We must have very different work environments. :)

2. I feel like there are usability/UX recommendations other than Nielsen that might be more useful for some audiences. His advice is a bit mundane and abstract for my tastes. Perhaps the https://userium.com/ list could be of use for some. Having options here (which I agree stinks of bloatware) could be interesting.

Oh.. and extra points for using a .CO :)


Thanks!

1. There actually already is HTML output. My idea is that most people will likely copy/paste from HTML or a Word Doc to combine with their collaborators. From that perspective, PDF feels too 'finished'. And yeah, as someone else explained, I'm a PM on the Office Online team :)

2. This is great. I'm working on supporting different lists than just Nielsen's heuristics (including being able to create your own custom list). Unfortunately the one you linked to is quite long and might be quite lengthy to have in the sidebar. I'll think about that though.


From his profile on the linked medium essay, "PM on Office Online." He works for microsoft.

I'd love to see a simple, open output format too. The source is up on github: https://github.com/cgallello/UXCheck.


Have you heard of or experimented with applications like inVision[0] or Ramen[1]?

[0]: http://www.invisionapp.com/ [1]: https://ramen.is/


Ramen is interesting - thanks.

My problem with Invision, which we used extensively about a year ago to redesign POP.co, is that it expects you to live in its own interface and interact with the Invision prototype on their own terms, inside their walled garden of sorts.

This is OK, and kind of makes sense in the app-driven world we live in, but to really fit into the kind of hectic, ten-different-tools workflow that we thrive in at the office, screenshots are the core lingua franca.

We can attach them to Pivotal tasks (or Hipchat convos, or anything else), forward them around (even via SMS!), scribble all over them, print them out and stick em on the wall for a meeting.

With Invision, we'd be crowded around a phone or screen, and unable to interact with the collaborative output in other tools. I came to dread receiving an Invision link in my email, especially because I couldn't tell which shortened URL referred to which project.

Overall, I've come to really hate tools that expect me to live inside them, rather than them living inside everything else I already use. I don't want to leave my flow.

Hope that made sense. :)


This is incredibly good feedback, and if there is anyone here from InVision, they should be paying close attention.

There's also a larger lesson to be learned about finding the integration points that make the most sense to the application you're building. Things like email and calendars are obvious, I wonder what else should be considered from the same point of view.


You clarified for me the misgivings I've had with Invision. I've used it a few times on projects (as more of a stakeholder than core team member), and it just never seemed to live up to its promise. I think it was because there were some people who were not "all in" with it, and some of the key feedback was coming outside the app.

Rather than the sense of dread you mentioned, I just let other things take higher priority than the emails with Invision links. I thought it did work well when a designer led a small group through a prototype live.


Curious, why extra points for `.co` ?


I was formerly the CTO of .CO, so it's shameless self-interest. :)

If you're considering what TLD to use for your next project, .CO gives you a ton of great freebies with their membership program[1]. Worth a look.

EDIT [1] whoops forgot the link thanks pc86 http://www.go.co/members/


http://www.go.co/ for those interested. (No affiliation, just had to Google for it)


For the membership program specifically: http://www.go.co/members/

Even though a lot of the offers are closed (would be nice if I could filter those out) there are still some handy deals in there.

I actually use a .co domain and had no idea about this program, so thanks to the GP!


.CO is also great in that they help startup communities, such as "Startup Weekend".


I've always been very frustrated with .co domains, since they are so close to .com and often get confused with one another. How does .CO handle this?


Some companies, especially at the beginning, would put a trailing slash on their domain names when using .CO on a business card or other printed material.

Things have gotten better now, and millions of people have interacted with t.co, the Twitter shortener, Vine, etc., which means that .CO isn't quite as "underground" as it used to be.

I think ultimately the choice of TLD should be related to other branding decisions in that you consider your market first. So if you are pursuing a group that's very internet savvy, or startup savvy, they've probably heard of .CO and you can use it freely. (Likewise, you could probably use an unusual/industry name)

But if you are going after people who aren't familiar with URLs or domain names -- or maybe can't even discriminate between an email address and a domain name -- you'd be better off going with the safer option.


Do you know if .CO (originally Colombian) is treated as a top-level domain by Google, just like .IO is?



nice perks! can we have those perks even for a personal website? :)


Yep! Just buy a .CO and get your info into WHOIS and you should be good.


Hi all - I created UX Check as a side project over the past few months and I'm glad that people are finding it to be helpful! There are some awesome suggestions in this thread and I'm already working on a v2, so feel free to keep the ideas coming.


That is a very nice tool for taking screenshots. Thanks!

Your website had me thinking the tool was going to perform an automatic scan for usability issues. You could be a little clearer that the tool allows users to note usability issues.


Hey there, really love the extension! It's nice to have something like this and it's a good way to record thoughts and feedback.

Speaking of user experience, you should really use inline installation[1] for chrome extensions. It provides a really nice experience so that users don't need to leave your site. It also allows you to detect if the extension is installed so that way you can remove the install button for people who already have it.

[1] https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/inline_installation


Too bad there's no Firefox version.


Seconded, would love to use this with my existing FF workflow.


Thanks for the input. I'll look into this.


Very nice. Something that will definitely prove useful.

Note: The highlight box seems to be slightly misaligned vertically on some sites. On one site I tested it seemed to be ignoring padding-top on the <body>.


Good to know, thanks. Can you let me know the specific sites you tested it on? I'll take a look.


Great service. Bonus link: how to conduct an Heurist Evaluation: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-e...


The site could use a UX check itself. :) Using Chrome on Windows:

http://imgur.com/EK3Mu3s

http://imgur.com/SbUmSzh

Also, what would be really handy is the ability to download the result not as a document, but rather to integrate it with existing issue tracking software such as JIRA. I'm sure that's on your V2 plans with some monthly recurring plan.


Yikes, that's bad. Do you use any accessibility settings like changing the font size on websites? Or are you on an older version of Chrome? Thanks for sharing.


Current version of Chrome, but my Windows font settings are set to 110% (system-wide, not browser specific) to make it easier to view text when in a high resolution on a small monitor. I see this issue with various sites that assume a fixed font size which can never change.

If I manually add "font-size: 16px;" to your html,body CSS definition, everything displays properly. The discrepancy is occurring because you are using a fixed pixel height (eg: for the "ten heuristics" div its height is 500px) but letting the browser/system determine the font size.


I'm using the latest version of Chrome on Windows 7 and I'm not seeing your errors.


This looks like a great tool!

I've been working on that topic too in the last year. I developed Capian (http://capian.co), a tool to help usability professionals make better heuristic evaluations faster.

I'm a full-stack developer and my partner is a UX designer. There's a lot of missing tools in our space. Great to see other people trying to address them!


Really nice extension. Sorry if these have already been suggested, but here's a few ideas from me:

When selecting "Other" in the heuristics dropdown allow you to enter your own in a text field.

4 levels of severity seems unnecessarily limiting - 10 would be nice


Thanks! V2 will support custom heuristics so hopefully that will help. I'll consider adding more severity ratings as well.


I'm curious to know how the author managed to take a screenshot of the site? I know there were methods to actually recreate the DOM via some 3rd party library. Not sure if things have changed with HTML5 or others means of doing it.


I used a Chrome extension API. One alternative I've heard is copying the DOM over into a separate canvas element, which you can save as an image. I haven't tried that yet though.

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/tabs#method-captureV...


Thanks, this is going to be really handy!

Just curious, what do you use to create the docx in browser?


That was the most frustrating part of the project. I used the Open XML SDK for Javascript. There isn't a whole lot of documentation so it was a lot of guess and check.

http://openxmldeveloper.org/wiki/w/wiki/open-xml-sdk-for-jav...


Tangent: what a gorgeous web site!


Are you the author? This seems like it would fare better as a Show HN.


I wish i was :) no i'm just sharing.


Cool browser extension! Thanks for sharing


Brilliant.


nice! :)




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