Usability

Article — 21 July 2026 — 1,159 words

The third horizon of human-centred approaches

Business — Human-centred approaches — User experience

The way we work as human-centred practitioners needs to change. From its beginnings as an engineering technique, through its transition to being a product design tool, user experience now needs to be adopted as a strategic approach.

Article — 22 June 2026 — 1,837 words

Don’t make me thick

Information architecture — Society — User experience

We say “don’t make me think”, and “less is more”. But a naive application of these principles risks limiting our users when we should be helping them grow.

Article — 23 February 2026 — 3,133 words

Words and pictures in the history of user experience and the future of artificial intelligence

Society — Technology — User experience

Modern artificial intelligence tools are largely rooted in text-based interactions. But the history of user experience, information and even humanity shows us that AI will have to go beyond text if it’s going to become relevant.

Article — 4 December 2024 — 1,161 words

Information grade — Potentially useful concept

Content design — Information architecture — User experience

A perspective on the similarities and differences between information, data, content and knowledge.

Linknote — 13 May 2024 — 185 words

Accessibility — User experience

Work: User Vision

Getting to the root causes of usability errors and accessibility problems — User Vision

Perception–Cognition–Action (PCA) analysis is a method of uncovering the root causes of usability errors and accessibility challenges in systems. By understanding these underlying issues, designs can be enhanced in order to avoid hazardous situations and cater to a wide array of user needs.

The approach is particularly recommended for medical devices, and is described in the international standard IEC 62366 on the application of usability engineering to medical devices. But this powerful technique can go so much further than that. It can help us understand how to improve usability and accessibility for a wide range of products.

My article for the User Vision website describes how the Perception–Cognition–Action approach works, how it aligns with established accessibility best practice, and how we at User Vision have applied it to transform a complex medical system used by both patients and healthcare practitioners.

I will also be speaking about the technique at this week’s UX Edinburgh meetup, which is an accessibility special in recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. If you are around on Thursday 16 May at 18:30, it would be great to see you there.

Article — 9 November 2021 — 1,032 words

Be usable, not consistent, not uniform

User experience

Consistency is often seen as a slam-dunk argument in favour of an initiative. But if you don’t know what you want to a design to be consistent with — and why — then consistency risks confusing your users.

Linknote — 24 February 2020 — 55 words

User experience — User research

Usability test tasks to avoid — David Hamill

A short list of surprisingly common things people ask users to do during a usability test — and what you should do instead.

Not mentioned in this list is the idea that you can ask people just to tell you what they think of the website generally.

The golden rule is: “Try to simulate reality”.

Linknote — 23 October 2019 — 107 words

Human-centred approaches — Web

The term “responsive web design” has failed — Frances Berriman

Those words (originally from a slide by Alex Russell) may seem rather provocative. But it is a fair reminder that design isn’t just about how it looks.

In this case, most people (including, at times, myself) have fallen foul of the trap described here. That of thinking that setting a few breakpoints for smaller screens is enough to be responsive.

It reminded me of Jakob Nielsen’s 2012 article in which he advocated building a complete separate mobile site. This was a controversial viewpoint at a time when responsive design was becoming seriously trendy.

But seven years on, can we truly say the mobile web is a great experience?

Article — 15 October 2019 — 815 words

User experience lessons from a university dumping Blackboard

User experience — User research

One university got so frustrated with Blackboard they finally ditched it. But this experience highlights a big problem with almost all enterprise software.

Linknote — 27 August 2019 — 30 words

Content design — Digital — Human-centred approaches

Readability vs creativity: a false choice? — Lauren Pope — La Pope

Why “brand voice” or creativity shouldn’t stop you making your content readable and accessible.

…a brilliant brand voice isn’t brilliant if it isn’t readable and accessible to all.

Article — 10 April 2019 — 627 words

Are users rational? It depends on what you mean by rational

Economics — User experience — User research

It’s fashionable to dismiss rational choice theory out of hand. But contrary to what you may have been told, aspects of rational choice theory can still be helpful in understanding the world. And I find it a useful way to think about user experience.

Article — 23 October 2018 — 447 words

URLs aren’t good enough

Technology — User experience — Web

I am a web enthusiast, but I think we need to find a better way to navigate the web than URLs.