Unfortunately, the enthusiasm I had for my new job waned after six months when an executive was appointed Head of Product Development—who insisted he knew SCRUM1 better than anybody. As the Creative Director, I deferred authority to him to develop the product as he saw fit. I had worked with SCRUM before, done training with Ken Schwaber (author1 and co-founder of the Agile Alliance) and knew a few things from experience about how to achieve some success integrating a design team within SCRUM. This required the design team to work a “Sprint” (month long iteration) ahead of the development team. But the new executive insisted that SCRUM had to be done by-the-book. Which meant, all activities had to be included within the same sprint, including design.

via Bringing User Centered Design to the Agile Environment – Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design.

via 25 UI Inspiration and Design Pattern Resources – Speckyboy Design Magazine.

via Crafting Subtle & Realistic User Interfaces — Flyosity: Mac & iPhone Interface Design.

A plain “Click Here” link buried underneath a wall of text is not going to yield very good results. Driving traffic to your website is important, however what good is the traffic if the primary call to action is nearly invisible? Having a well-designed call to action could be all the difference needed to rocket conversions sky high. The design of a call to action can be broken down into 4 simple elements, size, shape, color, and position.

via 4 Design Elements Behind a Good Call to Action | letscounthedays.

Designing a web site needs to be about the user and only for the user and every possible need of said user has to have been foreseen and catered for. Only then can a web site be usable. That is what USABILITY is.

Ok, that might be the worst description of web usability that you have ever read, but I am sure you get the point. Usability is important. Very important. The most important.

The big question is ‘how do I make my website usable?’ That question has no real clear answer. Usability is not a science and is one of the most debated subjects within web design. There are only guidelines that you can follow and advice that you can seek.

The best way to make your web site accessible is to read as much on the subject as possible and that is where this post comes in.

For this post, we have collected the best resources for learning about web usability; there are downloadable eBooks, online manuals, printable guidelines and useful checklists. Hopefully these resources will give you a better insight and understanding.

via An Introduction to Understanding and Implementing Web Usability : Speckyboy Design Magazine.

via A UI Design and Prototyping Treasure Chest | Web Design Ledger.

via Factors That Affect Usability.

via Carsonified » How to Understand Your Users with Personas.

via linowski.ca.

via 10 UX Blogs You Should Be Reading | UX Booth.