Probably what you are looking for is someone who can help you to understand what you really need. Looks like everyone around you is screaming buzzwords like UX, Design and all that stuff, and you want to keep your blogs trendy and don't know were to start. If you want to really understand the process that goes behind creating a great user experience, I would advise you to read The Elements of User Experience. I'm sorry I can't point you in a particular direction, but I think the most important part is understanding your customers and iterating until you find a good enough solution that satisfies your customers. For that you can read Don't Make Me Think, this will teach you how to make things simpler for your customers, and Rocket Surgery Made Easy (from the same author) that teaches you how to perform user tests. Of course, if you manage blogs, you should also get some real feedback from the field, and for that you can try using google analytics.

Welcome to the world of Information Architecture, where everything can be classified in more than one way. The reason is that anything (or shall I write - any thing) has more than one property, or in the IA jargon - a facet. Even God can be Christian or Muslim, omnipresent or monopresent, religious or scientific. While it is hard to give a definite answer without a better description of the project; and while in any case your main classification scheme should be based on user research rather than 'documented usability' or educated advice like the one I'm giving you here... I feel you are considering language to be a candidate for an hierarchical (or structural) class, where in fact it is nothing but a facet. A subject and its publications are clearly linked, language is nothing but what describes a property of a publication. I can easily see year-of-publication becoming a requirement at some stage. Thus, you should really stick to the subject/publication hierarchy and allow users to filter the list by language using a faceted filter (see example image below). Having said that, given the actual nature of your project and its users, this may not be the ideal solution. Shed more details on your project if this answer seems dubious to you.

Mixed classification in IA can be both appropriate and effective. To begin with, a proper IA should be determined by user-testing. Activities like tree-sorting will reveal that users sometimes expect elements outside the main classification scheme. Generally in UX, consistency should follow usability (a statement that is the source of debate I'd rather not open here). One example for this is the Polish section in UK supermarkets - whether it is bread, drinks or deodorants, these all appear on the Polish section shelves, rather in their corresponding 'native' sections. Polish buyers know where to go, and British buyers don't get 'Polish product noise'. In addition, there's nearly never a 'perfect' classification scheme. Elements nearly always have a few facets, and often the 'logical' solution can only be derived by user research. For instance, the BBC has a top-level section called 'TV'; one of the BBC channels is the children channel (CBBC); yet CBBC also has radio and interactive content. So there is also a top-level section called 'CBBC', most likely this was determined by user statistics. So if users is anything to go by, IA may work much better if it does not adhere to a strict classification scheme.

I would say it depends on the complexity of your form. If each steps contains at most 3-4 questions and most of the questions are pretty much self explanatory and straight forward, i.e. do not require a lot of help text, then you should implement the form as vertical steps instead. That would save users a few clicks. Otherwise, you could opt for one step per page.

In short: No, because it makes it harder for the user to find an entry in the list. In long: Many alphabetised lists use a slightly non-standard collation, in order to make the lists easier to use. Example 1: When listing people, they are almost always sorted by surname (Smith, John, Mr) even though the surname is the last name as normally printed (Mr John Smith). This is because in the context of finding a person in a list, the surname is the most important bit of data. Example 2: When listing surnames (e.g. in a directory), any starting with Mac or Mc are grouped together; this means that a user who isn't sure whether they're looking for MacIntyre or McIntyre only has to look in one place to find them. Example 3: When listing musical band names (e.g. in a music shop), there are so many starting with "The" that the T section would be unhelpfully large. So for example The Beatles are found under B, and The Who are found under W (yes, really). Example 4: When listing lochs in Scotland, there are so many beginning with "Loch" that the L section would be unhelpfully large. So for example "Loch of Aboyne" and "Loch Achray" are found under A. In the case of universities, it's unhelpful to group them all under U because: There are so many that the U section would be unhelpfully large. Most users don't know whether the University of Nottingham is properly called "Nottingham University" or "University of Nottingham" or "The University of Nottingham" (and don't care that much); and having to search under T, U and N to find out would be unhelpful - so, many lists help the user by putting it under N. A real life example from UCAS has the following list: ... University of Northampton The University of Nottingham Nottingham Trent University ...

This depends on the most desired and/or practical result. I have a wireframe to demonstrate some quick updates to your content. On the left are two sample boxes for quick-access to groupings, one being "this week" and the specific test types... the boxes could be filled with whatever quick-access micro list you want. The search box is now full-width, with the pre-set search ranges as stylible links below, and an alternative layout to the search results list. I didn't add the next idea to the image, but you could replace the search result list with a calendar month-style view. Or have photographs associated with most-recent tests below search box and links that disappear after entering specific search terms. Hope this gives you some good food-for-thought!

Find the story in the data--the story that your audience needs and wants to hear. (If the data is boring to you then you haven't found your story yet.) Some questions to help define your purpose: Why does this audience need to know basic info regarding web design/etc.? What will they do with the information? What will they take home to their desk? What is the function of the communication? Information, entertainment, do you want to change behavior, do you want a raise, are you trying to increase awareness and get more people to call in UX people for their projects...what? Only after you've got a place to stand on these fronts can you figure out how to present the information. The answer will speak directly to medium and tone (both great thing to think about).

If I've understood your question, I don't think a checkbox is appropriate here, but not because there is only one of them. It would make sense to have a single checkbox if it can be interpreted as on/off, true/false, enabled/disabled, etc. In this case, it sounds like you would be using it to initiate an activity ("create new employee"), which is a separate flow from selecting an employee. A button or link would be more intuitive.

If you are opening a new tab then informing the user is a good idea but it's more important to follow the conventions. Cases where a new tab is the right process (because you might lose the user and traffic) If you are showing the user a reference to another site If they are "liking an article" and the twitter screen pops up so the user just clicks "Tweet" and then goes back to your site If they want to see a PDF so they can leave it there to read it or save it Cases where the new tab is not the right process: Links to other parts on your site

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but a good starting point: use Oracle's DeFT at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/ux/applications/gps-1601227.html. You provide use cases and the tool provides design patterns.

Been thinking about this for an hour; have to admit "architectural blueprint" had me stumped. Do you actually mean a wireframe? I think you are looking for the following document definitions: Sitemap - Site architecture in a hierarchy, with clear categorization of pages. It's where the pages "live" in the organization, but not necessarily the order users will see them. Random google image example. Userflow/Flow - Shows the path or paths a user can take to complete a task. Pages show up in viewing order for the user, not with a categorical hierarchy. Decision logic is usually also included in this chart (either user decisions or system decisions). Random google image search Wireframe (architectural blueprint) - The core components of an individual page, communicating hierarchy, UI patterns, logic, content types, and potentially structure. Its a representation of how the interface might work, although it's not the final visual design or layout. Random google image example. Hope that helps! Good luck.

It depends on whether or not you need to verify the address. When validation matters If you need to verify the input you need a database of validation rules. But even then, it will be hard to keep track of all possible valid formats and keep in mind that these things are not set in stone and may change at any time. You could think about offering an option for the user to submit non-validating data which you can then get checked by a person. This prevents excluding valid addresses and it's also a great way to improve your validation ruleset. When validation doesn't matter One wild idea, in case validation doesn't matter at all, is to display an envelope and ask the user to enter her address directly on the envelope as if she received an letter (textarea supporting multi-line input). That's probably the most natural way for a user to enter an address and doesn't force her to enter the address in an (to her) uncommon flow of fields. Further reading: international names A related problem is how to accept international name input. The W3C has a done a very thorough article on this topic: http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names.

With assumptions and without seeing the example: Graying out a control typically means its read-only, static or not editable. A missing element means, well, that it does not exist. If the icon is tightly coupled with the control (its a clickable element or the like in context) then it should appear as the control does. My other opinion is a screen with high data density or large table of data having an empty cell is an effective way to use negative space as information (about what is missing). Edward Tufte's (an followers') ideas about information design could be helpful.

The first thing to remember about taxonomies is that there is never one correct taxonomy per set of elements. Imagine having the product set {paper, cotton fabric, old wooden lineal}. For a tailor, the categorization within their taxonomies is: {paper, old wooden lineal} -> pattern making supply, {cotton fabric} -> clothing raw material. For a paper manufacturer, the taxonomy is: {cotton fabric, old wooden lineal} -> raw materials for paper production, {paper} -> end product. So, a taxonomy is not so much about the products, it is more about the users. Each user has his own "correct" taxonomy, or more properly, each combination of a user and task he has to achieve will have its own correct taxonomy (when you have a nail, everything starts to fall in the "looks like a hammer" and "damn, useless" categories). So, how does the world work if everybody has a different taxonomy? There are multiple factors which allow you to get you close to a good solution: the more similar the users and their needs, the more overlap will there be between their taxonomies a site is not limited to one taxonomy navigating a taxonomy is not the only way to discover products As a user experience specialist, you will want to first create a composite taxonomy which gives you the best overlap of the individual correct taxonomies of your users. This can be done with the usual methods for discovering user needs, this time focused specifically on taxonomies. I can't enumerate them here, this is a topic which cannot be exhausted in a single book, much less a post here. The second thing to consider is that often, there are several good categories for a single product, each following from its own taxonomy. You should simply use them all at once. On a fabrics website, the same fabric can be listed under "Fabrics by purpose -> Clothing fabrics -> Winter fabrics", "Fabrics by material -> Natural fabrics -> Wool mix fabrics", and "Fabrics by color -> Weaved pattern fabrics -> Herringbone pattern fabrics". The user can navigate to it starting from each root. Amazon does something similar, look at all categories under which a book is found. The third thing: You will never be able to create a composite taxonomy covering all the individual taxonomies of all users who will ever visit your site. And users need lots of time (and fail often) to find a product categorized by a taxonomy which differs a lot from their own. So provide good search in addition to taxonomies.

Week is a good interval for such reports, because it provides management with 52 opportunities each year to assess the results and initiate corrective action if required. A monthly window is too long, and daily provides too granular a view - unless you're dealing with many hundreds of transactions per day. I would like to see your report with activity as shown, as well as some totals and comparative numbers. For example: - total for the week - month-to-date total - percent that Tech 1 closed vs all techs - average # of tickets closed over the past 4 weeks (averaging the 4 weekly totals) - average # of tickets closed over the past 6 months (averaging the previous 24 weekly totals) This gives insight into how the tech is performing individually, against the group, and against his own history (is the tech improving?)

Based on my experience and watching usability sessions I found that having a link behind a parent is not a very good practice. Reasons why: A good number of people "click" to open menus instead of assuming / knowing that it works on mouse hover (desktop). On mobile devices there is no "hover", and "hover" event translates to "click". This can cause issues if your menu item has a linking to a page and also has a "hover" event to open a second drop down. Given the reasons above, the best approach in my opinion is to have parent items "unlinked" and have two drop-down items instead. Ex: Home > Careers > Profile > Overview Home > Careers > Profile > Form Page NOTE: I also do agree with comment left by Simon, you should cross link both "Overview" and "Form Page" allowing users to quickly navigate between these pages instead of forcing them to use the multi-level drop down navigation. P.S. If you only have a single page then you should not need a second drop down.

The model you are looking for is known as a faceted search or faceted navigation. Variations on this are many and may not apply to every product. This is no small undertaking. A few suggestions to get you started Spend some time on a car search site or amazon, home depot or the like to find some patterns that might work with the products are working with. Search is a great way to get a user to a set of results they can then filter down. If the number of root groupings of reports is low, you can offer a gallery style entryway into each of them. An example is The apple store: http://store.apple.com/us They start with 4 products, iPad, iPhone, Mac and iPod. From there they narrow results. Their refurbished section is a good example of faceted navigation. Here is some discusssion. http://alistapart.com/article/design-patterns-faceted-navigation IMHO, success in this is a big task. I hope this sets you in the right direction.

The UX Book vs. The UX Scroll Having a single page of 1000+ entries is overwhelming. Whether it's quarterly reports or employee names, having that volume of them is massive. A user being able to sort their data is essential to agile navigation of data. I'd argue that aside from having more "pages" of data, having the option to sort the data in various ways would further enhance the usability. It's a bit difficult to discern exactly what kind of data it is on what you've provided, though. Think about why we have books instead of scrolls. While it's true both can save your spot in reading - by bookmarking a book, or by closing both ends of a scroll around a specific part - only the book can access any part of it's data at a moment's notice. Since the job of both is to contain information for quick retrieval, the book provides a better general user experience than the scroll. If you know your info was on Page-41, you can just go to Page 41. However, if you know your data is Kinda-3/4-down-the-scroll-bar, it's much more tasking to find your data.

The concept is indeed very badly explained, but as a rather abstract concept that can be applied in many ways, you would expect that. I'll use learning as an example here. Multi-channel The idea is that a complete experience can be realised using only one of a few possible channels (or media). For instance, if I wish to learn about Task Analysis, I can choose between a book, a website, a video tutorial, or a classroom lecture. All will teach me the same thing, and although each in a different way, the outcome will meet my needs regardless of the channel chosen. Cross-media The idea is that a complete experience requires crossing the different media. For instance, a Task Analysis module that requires students to first read a particular book, then visit a particular website, then watch a video tutorial and then attend a classroom lecture. The experience will not be complete unless all the related media is visited. Cross-Channel The idea is that a complete experience can be realised by jumping between channels at will. For instance, a module on Task Analysis that is designed in such way that learners can choose a different media for each sub-module, and regardless the media choice their experience will be complete. The authors do mention that it may not be possible to align all the steps between the various channels. The Future Supermarket Additional examples can be given using a future supermarket: The ability to choose the basket online, and when you get to the supermarket a mobile app will guide you to the goods. The ability to visit a supermarket and add to your basket products by scanning their bar-code with your mobile. Then request a delivery with your mobile an go home empty handed. Having a mobile app that whilst in the supermarket allows you to perform a faceted search on products (Red wine from France for less than £10) then shows you all options in stock and guides you to the product. Allowing you to pay for your basket directly via your mobile. So a particular experience may involve this path: Conclusion All of these are ideas that align the physical world with the digital world, thus allowing a more diverse experience paths than either the multi-channel or cross-media solutions. In addition, this line of thinking also opens doors to things that were not possible before in the real world. For example, it is impractical to offer faceted search in real-world supermarkets without the aid of digital technology. With the aid of digital designs, you can overcome many constraints of the physical world, and satisfy user needs to a greater extent. For instance, a need such as "I wish to make a vegetarian italian meal for 4". Thus, the "systematic change in the way we experience reality".

As usual, the answer is "it depends on your users". Acronyms are inherently unfriendly to new users (in this case, new people to your organization), because you are left trying to figure out what they mean - I work in an environment that LOVES to use acronyms for everything, and it took me the better part of 3 years to get fluent. On the upside, acronyms save space and convey information quicker to users familiar with them. It sounds like in your problem space there is some overloading of terms which might cause confusion - you've taken a page out of domain-driven design and worked with your client to define parts of a ubiquitous language, which is good. I like your idea of providing tooltips over the acronyms to define them, but it may be unnecessary. My shop's philosophy is to provide landing pages that use both the acronyms and their expanded form, i.e., Welcome, User X! This is the Vacation Expense System (VES), where you can fill out expense reports (ERs) for vacation expenses. Generally people will pick up the acronym quickly after seeing it like this, so it may be unnecessary to provide a tooltip on every usage of the acronym; still, consider these factors in making your choice: Expertise of your users (are these terms old hat? or are users frequently novices to the domain?) The size of your acronym vocabulary (are there 10 terms? 100 terms? 1000 terms?). If there are a lot of acronyms, providing the definition readily becomes more valuable.