Top 10 UX Articles of 2016

_{This article was sent through to me at the end of last year. Some of the links are useful.}

All the best for 2017

Lucia

These are the articles that our readers visited the most this year:

1. The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think
   Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.
2. Hamburger Menus and Hidden Navigation Hurt UX Metrics
   Discoverability is cut almost in half by hiding a website’s main navigation. Also, task time is longer and perceived task difficulty increases.
3. Centered Logos Hurt Website Navigation
   Getting back to the homepage is about 6 times harder when the logo is placed in the center of a page compared to when it’s in the top left corner.
4. Design a Brilliant SharePoint Intranet
   SharePoint requires install plus in-depth UX design and development. Forge strong relationship with SharePoint UX designers and developers for successful intranets. And take advice from winning teams who have made SharePoint an effective enterprise tool.
5. Open-Ended vs. Closed-Ended Questions in User Research
   Open-ended questions prompt people to answer with sentences, lists, and stories. Closed-ended questions limit possible answers.
6. Website Forms Usability: Top 10 Recommendations
   Follow these well-established — but frequently ignored — UX design guidelines to ensure users can successfully complete your website forms.
7. Front-End Style-Guides: Definition, Requirements, Component Checklist
   Front-end style-guides help efficient design and testing, and enforce UI consistency. We present 8 style-guide requirements and 25 common components.
8. Design Thinking 101
   What is design thinking and why should you care? A no-nonsense exposition of this much-mystified concept which is actually very practical once you understand it. History and background plus a quick overview and visualization of 6 phases of the design thinking process. Approaching problem solving with a hands-on, user-centric mindset leads to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage.
9. When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
   Journey maps combine two powerful instruments—storytelling and visualization—in order to help teams understand and address customer needs. While maps take a wide variety of forms depending on context and business goals, certain elements are generally included, and there are underlying guidelines to follow that help them be the most successful.
10. Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes
    A large-scale usability study revealed the most common and damaging web-design mistakes of today. They aren't surprising or new — they're enduring issues that continue to hurt website usability.

Bonus: Top 2 from 2015

These two articles (published last year) got so many hits in 2016 that they would have placed high on this year’s top-10 list:

1. Flat Design: Its Origins, Its Problems, and Why Flat 2.0 Is Better for Users
   Flat design is a web-design style that became popular around 2012. It is still widely used today, and its overuse can cause serious usability problems. One of the biggest usability issues introduced by flat design is the lack of signifiers on clickable elements. Flat 2.0 may provide a better alternative.
2. Menu Design: Checklist of 15 UX Guidelines to Help Users
   In both applications and websites, users rely on menus to find content and use features. Use this checklist to make sure your menus do their job.