Some Designs Work Better Than Other Designs

You may find yourself thinking: “which design is better?” If you’re about to launch a new website, or are evaluating your existing website, it’s important to understand why some designs are better than others.

Some designs work better 3:35

Jakob, the inventor of heuristic evaluation, explains more about the importance of a good user experience and how proven heuristics and UX design guidelines can drive big advances in creating valuable products and brand experiences.

• Consistency is key If you do the same thing always in the same way, people will learn it better. Decades of research shows that you want to put the logo in the left hand corner – so users have an easy way to get back to the homepage.
• Thinking about what type of big changes that you want to make is important. You need deep, architectural changes sometimes – which may give several hundred percent increases. Don't just throw a design at the wall to see which sticks – this is an impoverished way of understanding customer's needs.
• User Experience is not driven by technology; it's focused on people – psychology – and as such we are not 100% certain about what comes into play. User experience is not quite rocket science.

Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is co-founder and principal of Nielsen Norman Group: User Experience Research, Training, and Consulting.