You may have noticed the growing trend of carousel navigation in Web design. This method allows you to display several headlines without cluttering your page. But do users feel comfortable with this technique? Let’s take a look at the different challenges linked to this type of navigation. First, what are the benefits of properly implemented carousel navigation?

• It saves space. It really is the main goal behind it and it accomplishes it well. You can gather several headlines under a singular carousel navigation, thus saving screen real estate.

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Mark your calendars: November 12th is the World Usability Day! This celebration entirely focused on usability is organized by The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) since 2004.

For this year, Utilisabilité Québec (the Quebec branch of the UPA) is preparing several conferences related to usability with the theme Designing for a sustainable world. The gathering will take place from 6PM to 8:30PM at the CRIM, located at 550 Sherbrooke West. Here’s an overview of the different topics of discussion:

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The development of corporate intranets is often overlooked. Not enough thought is put into organizing its content logically. Good intranets can really increase efficiency in your office. You need to think of the employees who will have to use it to publish or find information. Here are some key considerations of a good intranet:

• Clear purpose. Determine which corporate needs will have to be fulfilled before implementing an intranet. Each section has to have a clear and easily identifiable purpose.

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Thousands of startups are founded each year. Each and every one of them offers products that will fullfil needs on the market. Giving new products visibility is one of the biggest challenge startups face. Indeed, the launch of any new product has to be meticulously thought out to be successful. These first steps need to be conceptualized with the user experience in mind. Here are a few valuable tips to help your startup establish itself on the Web.

• Clearly describe your product. New visitors or users need to be able to understand what your product is about in a few seconds (think 5 second test). Use as few words as possible to describe it. Focus on the user experience of your product and what benefits it can offer to your users.

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One of the many challenges of running a Website is attracting an audience that will stay loyal. It’s a jungle out there and there may be a dozen of Websites that offer similar content to yours. How can you differentiate yourself?

To build loyalty, you may want to engage users by including a community. Setting up social tools can be relatively easy but actually convincing your users to sign-up can be a challenge. There are a few hurdles that the typical user faces before deciding to adhere to a site. Most of these are related to poor user experience design. Understanding these common mistakes will give you insight on how to avoid them.

• Clear Website purpose
  Sometimes the purpose of a site just isn’t obvious. Most users will likely quit any website after a few seconds if they don’t understand its goal the first time around. It must be obvious in order to capture their interest. The challenge is to appeal to all types of users even the skeptical ones. They have to be able to understand what’s in it for them and what are the benefits of subscribing. Only then will users take a deeper look and consider signing up.

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