Stop Password Masking

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for June 23 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/passwords.html
		
Summary:
Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they
get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even
increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.
		
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Usability Week 2009 conference

  > New York City, July 13-17
  > Sydney, July 27-August 1
  > Edinburgh, Scotland, September 14-18

In-depth training:
  > 3-day camp on Usability in Practice

Specialized topics:
  > 14 in-depth tutorials

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND is new stop on Usability Week conference tour

I am particularly pleased to announce that we are adding another city to
the Usability Week conference: Edinburgh, Scotland. We have always had
many Scots come for our conferences in London, so now it's time for us to
go to them.

Edinburgh is also a great conference venue for attendees coming from other
countries. Of course, the city is beautiful and has a rich history (and
good after-conference drinks), but it's also particularly cheap to visit
now because of the weak pound and strong euro.

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/edinburgh/agenda.html
	
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CALL FOR ENTRIES: Intranet Design Annual

Think you have a good intranet? Submit it for the award:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2010

Deadline: July 11

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SYDNEY: free intranet user testing

If you're a company or government agency based in Sydney, Australia, we
may be able to offer you a free usability test of your intranet.

More info:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/freetest

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HIGHLY FOUSED NAVIGATIONAL SEARCH

Try a navigational query on Microsoft's new Bing search engine: that is, a
search that's specifically intended to get to a well-known site by
entering its name. (This is opposed to "informational" searches where
users want to find sites that cover a given topic.)

For example, search for Facebook:
  > http://tr.im/BingFB

The SERP (search engine results page) just lists ONE RESULT: the Facebook
website. You have to click on a command link to make Bing display a
listing with additional results.

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/command-links.html

Not cluttering up the page with additional results saves  both time and
confusion, especially in the case of less-savvy users.

Should you duplicate this design on your internal search? Only for queries
where you are 99% sure that there's only one thing that users could
possibly want. Otherwise, you're better off giving people the SERP they're
used to: a list of 10 blue links, with best bet as #1. After all, our
eyetracking studies confirm the common sense notion that users scan from
the top and don't scan far beyond #1 if it's a good match for their needs,
so you're not wasting a lot of their time by showing 9 more options.

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READING BEHAVIORS CONFIRMED IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

An eyetracking study of members of the Danish labor union "3F" visiting
the union website has found exactly the same reading behaviors as we have
found in testing English-speaking users.

In our non-eyetracking testing in Europe, Asia, and Australia, we have
observed the same reading behaviors across languages. Thus, there was no
reason to expect different results from a European eyetracking study than
from an American one. Still, it's nice to have this expectation
empirically validated.
	
Higher-literacy users - the "F" pattern:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Lower-literacy users - "plowing" text with a narrow field of vision:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050314.html

If you can read Danish, here's a summary of the new research:
  > www.3f.dk/eyetrack 

Eyetracking video clip (no soundtrack, so it's international!) of a
low-literacy user struggling through an article:
  > http://tr.im/LowLitET