Practical user research guidelines

3 top tips on conducting user research which the author feels you're more likely to pick up as you go along rather than get from a text book. All good points and worth a read.

Importance of your users first click

An interesting article from Jeff Sauro in which he talks about how important the first click is. His research indicates that when the users' first click is down the right path, 87% eventually succeed. When they click down an incorrect path, only 46% eventually succeed.

Advertising banner blindness

A recent psychologist's eyetracking study considered whether banner blindness was real and whether there were any techniques advertisers could employ to get their ads noticed by more website visitors.

Free usability & accessibility event at Uservision in Edinburgh

Edinburgh usability company Uservision are celebrating World Usability Day on 10 November with a free open house event, which features a talk on website accessibility from Jonathan Hassell from the BBC.

Scottish UPA HTML5 session

This month's Scottish Usability Professionals Association (SUPA) session is on HTML5 and its impact on accessibility. It's being held in central Edinburgh on Tuesday 25 October.

User testing & focus groups

Steve Krug covers the fundamental misunderstanding some managers have about usability testing with a funny animated vid and blog article.

Usability testing forum

I mentioned Steve Krug's new blog a little while ago. Hanging off that is a forum for people to share their usability testing experiences. You may even get a response from Steve if you pose a question...

Or failing that, from one of the many eager usability testers contributing.

The current categories:

• Questions?
• Testing success stories
• Testing horror stories
• Polls

Steve Krug's usability testing discussion forum

Steve Krug interviews

A couple of interviews in which Steve talks about his approach to usability testing, with lots of hints and tips. The biggest area of interest to me was around raising awareness, buy in and support for this kind of activity.

Getting real - a new way to think about development

'Getting real' is an online publication - a collection of essays by developers 37 Signals - that outlines their philosophy and methodology for applications development. I haven't read it all yet, but the concepts covered so far have great resonance for me and apply just as well I think to website content development.

Avoiding your next site redesign - Lou Rosenfeld

I attended a seminar by Lou Rosenfeld last week - "Adaptable Information Architecture; How to say no to your next website redesign". It was a great session, and his slides are available online.

Search site analytics - Lou Rosenfeld interviews

A collection of recent interviews with Lou Rosenfeld who this year wrote an excellent, must-read book - Search Site Analyitcs.

Form design crib sheet

A great reference sheet for designers of online forms. Download in multiple formats, with lots of examples and guidance.

Search engine ranking factors

A fantastic visual representation of the things you need to think about if you're keen to see your web pages perform well in search engine results pages.