“Users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“There seems to be this idea going around that usability testing is bad, or that the cool kids don’t do it. That it’s old skool. That designers don’t need to do it. What if I told you that usability testing is the hottest thing in experience design research? Every time a person has a great experience with a website, a web app, a gadget, or a service, it’s because a design team made excellent decisions about both design and implementation—decisions based on data about how people use designs. And how can you get that data? Usability testing.” (A List Apart No. 293)

“Users hate change, so it’s usually best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“Simple user testing with 5 participants, paper prototyping, and heuristic evaluation offer a cheap, fast, and early focus on usability, as well as many rounds of iterative design.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“Despite how much I rely on site audits, I’m well aware that some companies don’t put much stock in them. In fact, many gurus from the usability industry don’t like them at all. They have a point.” (Kim Krause Berg – Cre8pc)

“Websites that let users customize the UI have the same measured usability as regular sites. Sites for customizing products, however, score substantially worse due to complex workflow.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“In this paper. we explore why consumers do not seem to have a very distinct preference for usable products, even though these make satisfy them more after purchase. We wanted to explore the hypothesis that this might be due to the fact that it might be to hard for consumers to judge before use whether a product is usable or not. We call the pre-use assumptions that people have about the usability of a product expected usability. Experienced usability is the opinion people have about usability after use. We wanted to explore what product properties influence expected usability, and whether and when there is a difference between expected and experienced usability. And what the consequences of that are.” (Jasper van Kuijk – uselog)

“When you’re looking for work, it’s easy to get discouraged. You’ll find that many emails don’t get any answers, many applications go unacknowledged, contacts say they’ll do something but then forget or get distracted. That’s not because you’re a bad person, a failure, or doomed never to get a job. It’s just what happens. Another friend was looking for a job during one of the previous recessions. He had a year of complete discouragement, and then finally three great job offers appeared in the same week. Hang in there, keep positive (somehow) and eventually you’ll get the job you want.” (Caroline Jarrett – Usability News)

“Enemies of usability claim that because ‘the experts disagree’, they can safely ignore user advocates’ expertise and run with whatever design they personally prefer.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn’t even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)

“Despite the authoritative nature of international standards for usability, many of them are not widely used. This paper explains both the benefits and some of the potential problems in using usability standards in areas including user interface design, usability assurance, software quality, and usability process improvement.” (Nigel Bevan – Journal of Usability Studies May 2009)

“Individual investors are intimidated by overly complex IR sites and need simple summaries of financial data. Both individual and professional investors want the company’s own story and investment vision.” – (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)