2012 Retrospective

by December 27, 2012

As the year comes to a close, it's time for my annual round-up of the most read articles I published this year. In order of popularity, the top five articles from 2012 are...

Evolving E-commerce Checkout

Checkout is the lynchpin of e-commerce. It’s how customers buy and retailers get paid. Yet despite years of evolution, only a few changes have significantly impacted checkout conversion online. Knowing what worked, what didn’t, and what might can help improve checkout forms today and reveal what the future of digital shopping could be tomorrow.

Responsive Navigation: Optimizing for Touch Across Devices

As more diverse devices embrace touch as a primary input method, it may be time to revisit navigation standards on the Web. How can a navigation menu be designed to work across a wide range of touch screen sizes? In these demos, Jason Weaver and I decided to find out.

Testing One Thumb, One Eyeball Mobile Use

People use their smartphones anywhere and everywhere they can, which often means distracted situations that require one-handed use and short bits of partial concentration. Effective mobile designs not only account for these one thumb/one eyeball experiences but aim to optimize for them as well.

Off Canvas Multi-Device Layouts

Most multi-device layout patterns for the Web are designed to rearrange page elements within a visible browser window. Off canvas multi-device layouts, on the other hand, use the space outside a browser’s viewport to hide secondary elements until people need them. Jason Weaver and I put together demonstrations of several new off canvas layout patterns.

Touch Gestures for Application Design

In my third video for Intel Software Partners on re-imagining desktop application design, I walk-through an overview of touch gestures, how we can use them in our applications, and ways to make gesture-based interactions more discoverable for the people using our apps.

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