If there was a theme to the topics that were discussed in UX in 2017, it was broadening the scope and impact of the practice of User Experience. As UX continued to expand to every corner of business, new adopters were looking for information to help them get started, and veterans were exchanging new solutions to familiar problems.
Some of our most popular articles addressed ways of doing better research for e-commerce platforms, on mobile devices, or at different stages of the product cycle. We wrote about ways of measuring the user experience, and ways of forging a voice for UX on your team. We wrote how-tos and intro guides for new researchers.
We’ll be looking forward to what 2018 has to bring, and how we can keep contributing to the discussion. In the meantime – here are our top stories of 2017.
Read more:
1.
SUS and PSSUQ: Quantifying user experiences
Our most-read article of the year was a comparison between 2 psychometric surveys: the System Usability Scale and the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire. This post sums up each user testing survey and its deliverables, and advises researchers on which one to choose.
Finding ways to quantify usability and benchmark performance over time is becoming increasingly important as more organizations make UX research an integral part of their design process.
2.
Google Express vs Amazon: UX Wars
As always, our UX Wars series attracted plenty of readers this year. The most notable showdown was between these 2 online shopping giants – both of which had more usability issues than you might think. Who did we crown the undisputed king of e-commerce UX?
3.
8 favorite user testing quotes
Quotes inspire us, motivate us, and expose us to new perspectives on old ideas. This collection of quotes from industry leaders on user research, usability testing, and UX design has been inspiring UXers all year, and is still getting steady traffic!
4.
How to do usability testing: A compiled guide
As the importance of UX becomes increasingly recognized, more and more designers, marketers, entrepreneurs, and people of all backgrounds are doing usability testing for the first time. To help them get started, we put together this beginner’s guide: a hub-and-spokes page with informational links for every aspect of the user testing process.
5.
H&M vs Forever 21: UX Wars
Our second-most popular UX Wars post of 2017 was a mobile UX fight: we tested these 2 apparel stores’ websites on Android phones using our new mobile user testing software. Some of the biggest takeaways centered around how the 2 brands handled navigation on their mobile sites.
6.
5 reasons remote usability testing is easier than pie
This lighthearted post offered 5 good reasons no one should be afraid of user testing (and 5 pie pics and recipes to go along – don’t read while hungry). Our favorite? With user testing, you can cook up something everybody loves. Like pie!
7.
Mobile user testing takes a step forward
In 2017, we were all about mobile. The shift to devices is now several years old, but this year new technologies have made it easier than ever to test websites and apps across every platform.
This article describes our latest mobile user testing solution and its advantages compared to older methods.
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8.
A user testing plan built for agencies
This was also the year we released the market’s first and only UX research solution designed specifically to meet the needs of digital agencies.
After talking with our agency customers, we formulated an agency plan that was flexible and collaborative, and allowed agencies to keep research (and billing) for each client totally separate.
9.
How to write tasks, Vol. 2: E-commerce usability testing
A good task list is the foundation on which great usability research is built. This second article in our “How to write tasks” series focused on writing e-commerce tests, with example scripts from desktop and mobile user tests.
10.
How Trump’s inauguration changed the UX equation for Gallup
One of the biggest stories of the year, the inauguration of Donald Trump, has an interesting UX sidebar. We worked with Gallup to tell the story of how the new president’s controversy drove waves of new and different visitors to their Presidential Job Approval Center, forcing them to re-optimize the page for a new audience.
Want more? Check out our top user testing stories of 2016!
