Nielsen Norman Group Report:

Flash Usability: Design Guidelines for Web-Based Functionality, Tools, and Applications

188 pages PDF format, 7 MB
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> Flash Usability (this report)
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Summary

This report is based on usability research with 46 different Web-based applications in Flash that were tested with users in the United States, Germany, and Japan.

We tested the way people use real, current applications to achieve representative tasks. The report contains 117 design guidelines that will make Flash applications more aligned with human behavior and thus easier to use.

The guidelines are based on usability tests of 46 Flash applications ranging across the following categories:

• e-commerce
• configurators
• news and current events
• maps and location finders
• e-learning
• entertainment
• productivity applications

Most current Web-based applications are ephemeral applications that must be immediately understandable or users will fail. The usability requirements for applications on the Web are much stricter than they ever were for traditional software development.

We estimate that companies can double the return on their investment in Flash applications if they improve the quality of the user experience and overcome the usability problems we have identified.

Richly illustrated with 170 screenshots, showing designs that worked well for users as well as designs that caused them usability problems.

To supplement the screenshots in the written report, there is a separate 53-minute video showing dynamic examples and highlights from the user test sessions.

Table of Contents

188-page report

1. Executive Summary
   • Success Rates
   • Web-Based Applications are Ephemeral Applications
   • Navigating to Flash Applications
   • Object-Oriented GUI Design
   • A New Generation of Design Guidelines
2. Research Overview
3. Procedure
4. Designs Studied
5. Summary of Findings
   • Feature Success Rates
   • Task Success Rates
   • Interpreting Success Rates
6. Guidelines for Designing with Flash
7. Discussion and Examples for Flash Design Guidelines
8. User-Centered Design
   • 26 design guidelines
   • Design Usability
   • Workflow
   • Content
   • Navigation
   • Feedback
9. Attracting Visitors
   • 7 design guidelines
   • Make Applications Compelling
   • Quality Assurance
10. Object-Oriented Control
    • 13 design guidelines
    • Drag and Drop
    • Creating Objects
    • Resizing Objects
    • Rotating Objects
11. Presentation
    • 24 design guidelines
    • Motion
    • Sound
    • Colors and Fonts
    • Scrolling
    • Graphics and Photographs
12. Implementation Nuts and Bolts
    • 19 design guidelines
    • Browsers
    • Installation and Loading
    • Saving and Printing
    • Hovering, Clicking, and Tabbing Behavior
13. User Assistance
    • 16 design guidelines
    • Help
    • Instructions
    • Tutorials
    • Error Recovery
14. Application Specifics
    • 12 design guidelines
    • Maps
    • Registration
    • International Considerations
15. Methodology
    • Overview
    • Participants
    • Tasks
16. Types of Designs Studied

What You Get

• Checklist of 117 specific design recommendations: review your weblication for these 117 best practices, and you will discover several things that need improvement.
• Description of how people behave when using functionality-based user interfaces on the Web. Learn from the users' comments and reactions to common design mistakes in the 46 Flash designs we tested.
• 170 screenshots of Flash designs with descriptions of why they worked well for users or caused them problems in usability testing.
• $450,000 of user research at 0.01% of the cost.
• Test methodology description, allowing you to run your own user tests of your own design.

Who Should Read This Report?

• Anybody who is responsible for the design or strategy for Internet-based applications or feature-oriented use of Flash.

Running a similar international usability study yourself to collect comparative design lessons from a large number of user interface ideas would cost about $450,000.

Please help us continue publishing low-price reports by buying a site license if you have colleagues who will read the report. If you only need it for yourself, then that's obviously what the single-user license is for. If somebody "gives" you a copy, then please buy a download anyway to keep prices down in the future.

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