: It’s tough to get a client on board with the added costs of working with users to create a usable and experience-driven website, especially if you’re just starting out and the majority of your clients are start-ups or family members. While you’d love to grab a copy of Don’t Make Me Think and quiz [...]

: To create clear menus you need to understand your customers’ top tasks and use the words they would look for as they seek to complete these tasks. : http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-11-16-Create-clear-menus.htm

: The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows, translucency, and even simple physics. : http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/01/21/realism_in_ui_design/

: When a user visits your website, you have 5 seconds to grab their attention. Okay, maybe that’s not always true but none the less you want to make sure there’s a banana (banana being the key element you want your users to look at) to grab their attention. : http://www.leemunroe.com/visual-hierarchy/

: When we finish our engagement with our clients, they’ve learned how to do the work themselves. They can continue researching and enhancing their designs, using the techniques and tricks we’ve taught them. We’ve done our job and they’re happy continuing on their own. : http://johnnyholland.org/2010/02/17/what-happens-when-you%E2%80%99re-gone/

: With a myriad of articles appearing revolving around the theme of usability and user experience, designers have been challenged to look at their websites and creations in a new light. Through this, some have changed their websites, and some have shrugged things off. Still, what remains is that the role of usability and user [...]

: A user experience aggregator. : http://uxurls.com/

: I want to share an additional set of principles and patterns I have been using for RIA design. While the book takes a much more consumer web site orientation, these concepts are central to enterprise application and web productivity application design and more broad than those discussed in the book. : http://designingwebinterfaces.com/designing-web-interfaces-12-screen-patterns

: Whitney Hess shares some lesser known, some brand new, and some recently revamped blogs that are on the rise in 2010. : http://www.blogs.com/topten/10-ux-user-experience-blogs-to-watch-in-2010/

: http://blog.semanticfoundry.com/2010/02/11/the-ux-canon-essential-reading-for-the-user-experience-designer/ : http://blog.semanticfoundry.com/2010/02/11/the-ux-canon-essential-reading-for-the-user-experience-designer/