Posted at: 12:50 PM by Marianna

As we are heading towards the end of 2009 a lot of practitioners in digital industry have started identifying some current & new trends that might be established in 2010. Here is a list of some exciting predictions:

Usability Predictions (view source by W Craig Tomlin @ctomlin)

· There will be a dramatic increase in the use of low cost web-based usability testing tools.

· True usability ROI will continue to elude usability practitioners.

· Use of remote moderated usability testing will increase by a factor of 10.

Design Trend Predictions (view source by Sneh Roy @LBOI)

· Much more type rich imagery online with the ease of font replacement now, especially with CSS3 around the corner. It's going to be all about spacing, type and uniqueness.

· Some sites will gear towards the magazine type of look with short concise articles, easy to read and absorb clean simple design with splash of bold colors to catch the eye.

· A lot more retro and vintage colors in design and in packaging design. Many consumer goods have been releasing limited edition products with their retro packaging, and since it is a successful way of marketing it won't be too long before other consumer goods start doing so as well. I also see the transition between print to web becoming a huge trend.

· Another step will be what is now being nicknamed Web3.0. It's all about automation. Web 2.0 is about customized, personalised content, but the next step is about automated and integrated content.

Other

· Mobile net will flourish: As we now have some great hardware, good packaging, balanced operating systems and an accepting public we can expect mobile Internet to take hold. Dot mobile sites will enable us to interact with our phones without a constant flurry of pinching and scrolling. Mobile e-commerce may not be too far behind. (view source by Adam Toren)

· 2010 will be The year of Platform Wars: netbooks, cell phones, pads, Cloud standards. Clouds will tend to support the consumer world (Picnik, Amazon), enterprises will continue to build out their own data centres, and Netbook sector growth rates continue to post very large numbers.

· News media that survive will move to the subscription model, in whole or in part, along age lines. (view source by Mark Anderson)

· Video: As already mentioned, IPTV continues to rise, but video as a whole will be a massive trend to watch through 2010.

· The real time web is going to be a big issue, especially in search. Lots of smaller technology companies have been quick to realise this, as often indicated through the likes of TechCrunch, and I imagine the better ones will fare extremely well during the course of the coming year. (view source by Jake Hird @Jake_Hird)

· Location, location, location: the new frontier in app dev is location-aware applications and services, for internal, asset and service management, and B2C.

· Which underpins a new wave of mobile services as smart phones become pervasive. Augmented Reality will begin to make a mark in the mobile space. Initial experiences in Europe are likely to be in augmented tourism next summer-where you point your phone at a building and it shows you the associated Wikipedia entry. (view source by James Governor @monkchips)

Here at Zabisco the New Year will find us busy with interesting projects as planning new mobile applications, forming user experiences for various sites, design challenges and launching websites that have been built this year.

Feel free to share your predictions for 2010 with us!

Labels: design, prediction, user experience, web

Posted at: 3:55 PM by Mark

Having skipped a month due to over -indulging through the festive period, we're back on the desktop wallpaper trail for 2009, with a couple of fresh designs downloadable for your visual delight during Feb.

The first is based on the lunar calendar (why not?) and an interesting fact I read about February being the only month that can pass without a full moon. Amazing, eh? No? Well, maybe not, but will there be one this year you're now wondering; I'll let the wallpaper tell you. The second design marks the Chinese New Year, the year of the Ox, which approximately 1.33 billion people are currently celebrating and will be for the next couple of weeks. The Ox is thought to be the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work, so lets hope that holds true for us all at these credit crunching times!

Download: 1920x1200 • 1680x1050 • 1280x800 • 1024x768

Download: 1920x1200 • 1680x1050 • 1280x800 • 1024x768

Enjoy!

Labels: creative, design, illustration

Posted at: 4:37 PM by Marianna

How many times have you visited a website, get attracted by its design but couldn't find what you were looking for and navigate away? But still after you left the website you did not know what was the problem as the website seemed so aesthetically pleasing, user friendly and all the information at least on the homepage you visited seemed to be in the right position?

The problem is in Nomenclature Design. It is important users to be able to comprehend the labels and the terminology you use. Before you define the content of your website you should ask some crucial questions:

·Who are your customers?

·What tasks do customers want to complete when they visit your website?

·What content are customers looking for via your website?

·How can you help customers find the information they need via your website?

·What are the services your company offer and you try to promote via your website?

·What are your business objectives? (See also: Online persuasion or better user experience - You be the judge!)

·How do your business objectives align with your website goals?

·What search terms are customers using?

After consider all these questions you should also make sure you choose user- centric language for your website and not internal, company language. Virtually no user read a webpage word for word so it's important to have the information they require in the best places. If they can't find what they are looking for in a few seconds then they will disappear. Also, if they don't understand a term you use then there's a good chance they will disappear too.

Sometimes different websites aim to different audiences so many sections though they are repeated in many websites are labelled different. For example many websites use the word "Vacancies" for the section where they place the job positions while others use the word "Jobs" or "Careers". This varies depending on whether you are looking for people for a short period of time or you advertise a position where actually the applicant can build a career inside your company. It also varies depending on what kind of users will visit your website.

Have a look of how three different websites use different labelling for job positions:

Picture 1: Oxfam website

Picture 2: BT website

Picture 3: Scottish Health Council website

As Rick Oppedisano states in his article "Common Principles: A Usable Interface Design Primer" : "Simple and comprehensible navigation is essential for the success of any application. Users must be able to move from page to page via links, buttons, or menu items. More importantly, navigation must also address the tenuous balance between real-life user goals and business goals of the application. When business requirement terminology filters into navigation, there is risk that the typical user may misinterpret the language used in the navigation. This misinterpretation compromises the user's ability to complete the task, and can override the benefits the technology aims to provide".

If you can go out of your corporate role and try to read your website as a simple user or have the opportunity to ask external visitors who are not aware of your company's jargon and they can understand the aims of your web site; then the rest of the world will do too!

Labels: design, experience, labelling, navigation, user