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So what exactly is user research like at YouTube? Sometimes it means letting users design their ideal experience. For example, last year we used a method called FIDO (first utilized by Fidelity Investments) where we cut out different elements of various video sites, stuck them on magnets, and had users arrange their ideal organization of the elements (see below for an example). Other times we use a more standard research method called a usability study, which entails seeing whether a user can or can't complete certain standard site tasks in a usability lab.

So what exactly is user research like at YouTube? Sometimes it means letting users design their ideal experience. For example, last year we used a method called FIDO (first utilized by Fidelity Investments) where we cut out different elements of various video sites, stuck them on magnets, and had users arrange their ideal organization of the elements (see below for an example). Other times we use a more standard research method called a usability study, which entails seeing whether a user can or can't complete certain standard site tasks in a usability lab.

Try to learn as much as you can about the business that you are advising, what drives it, and the changes that it is capable of making. Be user-centred, in the widest sense: the users who will use the product, the staff who will help them to do so, and the client who is commissioning all of it. Involve users as much as you possibly can. If you're forced to do an expert review, at least try to do a 'persona-led heuristic inspection' to bring some users into it.

During discovery, we review the baseline analytics to look for potential problem issues. We then collaborate with the analytics team to conduct the goals analysis, connecting high-level user and business goals to measurable user behaviors. During design, we collaborate with the optimization team to identify and generate design variants for A/B and multivariate testing. And then post-launch, we supplement analytics data with user surveys and usability testing, providing the "why" for the "what." Then we repeat steps one through four.

The definition of usability is sometimes reduced to "easy to use," but this over-simplifies the problem and provides little guidance for the user interface designer. A more precise definition can be used to understand user requirements, formulate usability goals and decide on the best techniques for usability evaluations. An understanding of the five characteristics of usability - effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, easy to learn - helps guide the user-centered design tasks to the goal of usable products.

User Centric, Inc., a user research firm based in Chicago, offers a glimpse into the battle between the newly launched Microsoft's Bing and the powerful incumbent, Google. Eye tracking technology was used to capture 21 participants' eye movements as they completed two informational (e.g., "Learn about eating healthy") and two transactional (e.g., "Book a last minute vacation") search tasks in each engine.

Users do not like to be visually distracted when filling in forms. They often want to get it done as quickly as possible. Therefore it is vital to design a clear and tidy form. Users do not mind filling in a rather long form with easy to understand and neat design than a short, visually cluttered and complicated form.

Complex design is far easier and takes much less planning than simple design. It encompasses what your user might want to do, rather than understanding exactly what your user needs. Simplicity, it seems, requires more thought, planning, research and vision.

Compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs, or listening to their ipod, cell phone users were the group most prone to oblivious behavior: only twenty-five percent of them noticed the unicycling clown. The walkers not using a cell phone noticed the clown over fifty-percent of the time.

Compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs, or listening to their ipod, cell phone users were the group most prone to oblivious behavior: only twenty-five percent of them noticed the unicycling clown. The walkers not using a cell phone noticed the clown over fifty-percent of the time.

Human-factors engineers -- whose training includes psychology -- specialize in testing products for usability, for example checking whether a copying machine's legs get in the way, or measuring how much force it takes to open a coffee canister. The engineers can then suggest design changes, which benefit all users but especially those with disabilities or conditions such as arthritis.

The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. Achieving a harmonious balance of these ten principles is a constant challenge. A product that gets the balance right is "Googley" - and will satisfy and delight people all over the world.

Of course, a part from taking the pictures the analysis and annotation might have taken some time, but you'll manage doing that within one day. I think his report is a great example that even an unexperienced 'user researcher' can produce a wealth of design information in a limited amount of time, given the fact that he or she is in the right place at the right time.

More than anything, Google prefers to make design decisions based on what performs well. And as a company, Google cares about being fast, so we want our user experience to be fast. That's not just in terms of front-end latency-how long it takes the page to download-it's also about making people use their computers more efficiently. A lot of our design decisions are really driven by cognitive psychology research that shows that, say, people online read black text against a white background much faster than white against black, or that sans serif fonts are more easily read than serif fonts online.

. Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds.

"[With eyetracking] we can see that a user may navigate the page of an interface that houses the info she wants," she said, "but if the text is poorly presented, or the navigation is cluttered, or there are too many superfluous images so she cannot easily find what she needs. This is a lost opportunity.

Although some graphic designers claim they hate UseIt, ordinary users tend to like it. We usually want sites to be usable, and we get frustrated when they're not, even if we don't really know what's wrong with them. Nielsen helps us to understand the problems, and that they're not necessarily our fault.

The ways people react to robots is teaching computer and robotics scientists valuable lessons about how to make technology more user-friendly -- and more human.

Consumer search trends analyzed for the report show that comparison shopping has become a priority, while brand consciousness has lessened in importance. This change in behavior has led advertisers and search engines to adapt quickly to the new economic environment, seeking out new ways to target users.

With a marketing person, 90 percent of the time is spent trying to do everything to shape the buying decision," said Earl Powell, director of the Design Management Institute, a forum for industrial designers and the businesses that use them. Designers are "more committed to the user experience. That experiential component has an emotional resonance: It sticks