Nahirnyj Designs

Surveys might seem like a quick way to gather consumer data, but anyone who has ever spend time designing a survey knows that there is a lot of work involved in asking the right questions and making sure your responses are unbiased.

In the next few posts, I will give some pointers on survey development starting with rating scales.
Most of us have probably been exposed to the two common rating scales: Likert (LICK-ert) and Semantic Differential Scales. While these scales are great for research projects, a poorly constructed rating scale will do more harm than good.

Semantic Differential Scale
Likert Scale
Continue reading

I am sitting on sofa looking out the window waiting for a pizza to be delivered. The web site said that it would take 60 min and now it has been 66 min. The weather is really bad, but 60 minutes seems like a long time for a pizza to be deliver. Maybe the weather was factored into the 60 min, but then again maybe not. Maybe I should call, but if it really is the weather, I don’t want to sound like a jerk asking where my pizza is.
Continue reading

In an article from Psychology Today, researchers have found that relaxed shoppers spend more money.

When we are relaxed our brain does not perceive a threat allowing us to think at an abstract level about products and services. For example, when shopping for a luxury car, a relaxed person might think about how comfortable they will be on a long road trip or how amazing their favorite CD will sound. The not so relaxed person is probably thinking about how much is that luxury audio system going to cost and do they really need it.

The next time you are trying to sell someone a product or a service, remember that their emotional brain has already formed a response and your goal is to stop their prefrontal cortex cortex from using logic to override their initial emotional brain.

Amazing presentation from Will Evens – A Socio-Cybernetic Model for Designer Leadership in the User Experience Community

Continue reading

A study from a Nielsen Group shows that 62% of the time users visit a site with a pre-determined goal. This can be broken down further to show that 35% of visits were to look for a particular type of product (without a specific product in mind) and 27% of visits were to look at a specific product. The rest of the time we are browsing, looking for promotions, or searching for inspiration.

This actually makes a lot of sense; think about how many times you’ve went to Home Depot’s web site just to see what it was all about. While, I’m sure that everyone would agree, we should make it as easy as possible for users to find the products or information that they want. Marketing people seem to have a very hard time with this concept, they have been trained to get the users attention, they want to sell you something or have you sign up for something or let you know about a super awesome promotion. This isn’t necessarily bad, until it gets in the way of the user completing their primary task, you know the one they came to your site for.

Continue reading