I realized I wanted to write this piece when I mentioned the Baymard Institute to a User Researcher with 10+ years of experience and they had no idea what I was talking about. They aren’t alone! I’ve gotten plenty of raised eyebrows on the subject before.

當我向擁有10多年經驗的用戶研究員提到Baymard Institute時，我意識到我想寫這篇文章。他們不知道我在說什么。 他們并不孤單！ 以前我在這個問題上揚眉吐氣。

This is a shame!

真可惜！

If you’re a User Researcher (or in any area even tangentially related to UX, websites, or digital products) Baymard can probably provide you some value — quite possibly already has — and is worth being aware of. Stay tuned for my thoughts

如果您是用戶研究人員(或什至與UX，網站或數字產品有切線關系的任何領域)，Baymard可能會為您提供一些價值(很可能已經擁有了)，并且值得您注意。 請繼續關注我的想法

I promise I’m not affiliated with them. I’m just a big fan!

我保證我不隸屬于他們。 我只是忠實粉絲！

Baymard是誰？ (Baymard who?)

The Baymard Institute is an “independent web usability research institute” founded by Denmark-based Christian Holst and Jamie Appleseed in ~2008.

Baymard研究所是由丹麥的Christian Holst和Jamie Appleseed在2000年成立的“獨立網絡可用性研究所” ?2008年。

The organization was founded on the central thesis that design decisions are often made subjectively or politically, and that a more evidence-based approach is possible.

該組織建立在中心論點上，即設計決策通常是主觀或政治上做出的，并且有可能采用更多基于證據的方法。

…and I know so because we work with a lot of the large fortune 500 and you think that they have this gigantic team that just knows exactly what’s going on in every single part of their site. But when you then start to work with them it’s pretty clear that sometimes the reason why they have this particular design for their filters is because Mike decided so. Mike is somewhere in the design department. [He] decided so and nobody argued against him and that’s why they have this filtering design — not because they spend hours and hours necessarily researching every single bit of that particular design.

…我知道是因為我們與許多財富500強企業合作，而您認為他們擁有一支龐大的團隊，只是確切了解其站點的每個部分都在發生什么。 但是，當您開始與他們合作時，很顯然，有時候他們之所以為自己的濾波器設計這種特殊設計的原因是因為Mike如此決定。 邁克在設計部門。 [他]如此決定，沒有人反對他，這就是為什么他們擁有這種過濾設計的原因-并不是因為他們花費數小時來研究特定設計的每一點。

— Christian Holst

— 克里斯蒂安·霍爾斯特 ( Christian Holst)

Christian and Jamie also looked at academic research in the Human Computer Interaction field and noted that what they saw tended not to be as immediately commercially applicable as it potentially could be.

克里斯蒂安(Christian)和杰米(Jamie)還研究了人機交互領域的學術研究，并指出他們所看到的趨勢并不像可能的那樣在商業上立即適用。

As an attempt at addressing this reality, Baymard sells research reports (and related services) generated based on tens of thousands of hours of their own in-house usability testing performed on industry-leading websites.

為了解決這一現實問題，Baymard出售了基于行業領先網站上進行的數以萬計的內部可用性測試而生成的研究報告(及相關服務)。

The full reports require payment (a la carte or through a subscription), but Baymard has also published more than 250 freely available articles on their site — each one containing a number of evidence-based recommendations.

完整的報告需要付費(按需訂購或通過訂閱)，但Baymard還在其網站上發布了250多個免費提供的文章-每個文章都包含許多基于證據的建議。

Simply put, these articles are some of the best free resources out there for learning about concrete usability best practices. They’re one of my go-to recommendations for those new to UX design.

簡而言之，這些文章是一些最佳的免費資源，可用于了解具體的可用性最佳實踐。 對于UX設計的新手來說，它們是我的推薦建議之一。

Baymard實際上被低估了嗎？ (Is Baymard actually underrated?)

Baymard is by no means unknown. In fact, they’ve been utilized by very recognizable brands such as Nike, Etsy, Walmart, and hundreds of others. But the recognition they get still seems to be out of proportion to the value they provide. They have what I would consider a relatively small following on social media at less than 4,000 followers on Twitter and 1,500 on LinkedIn, and they don’t seem to be quite the household name among UX design and research circles that I would expect.

Baymard絕不是未知數。 實際上，它們已經被耐克，Etsy，沃爾瑪等數百家知名品牌使用。 但是他們獲得的認可似乎仍然與他們提供的價值不成比例。 我認為他們在社交媒體上的追隨者相對較少，在Twitter上的追隨者少于4,000，在LinkedIn上的追隨者則只有1,500，而在UX設計和研究圈子中，它們似乎并不是家喻戶曉的名字。

I think there are a few reasons for this.

我認為有幾個原因。

One thing is that Baymard positions themselves as an e-commerce-specific research group. Those who don’t work in e-commerce may be quick to overlook the relevance of their reports and findings, even if many of their findings are actually widely applicable to other areas. The narrower niche helps them connect better with brands they can provide the most value to, but this comes at the expense of communicating their value to that wider UX community.

一件事是，Baymard將自己定位為特定于電子商務的研究小組。 那些不在電子商務中工作的人可能會很快忽略他們的報告和調查結果的相關性，即使他們的許多調查結果實際上廣泛適用于其他領域。 狹窄的利基市場可以幫助他們更好地與可以為其提供最大價值的品牌建立聯系，但這是以向更廣泛的UX社區傳達其價值為代價的。

It also doesn’t help that Baymard does almost no active marketing. They rely entirely on putting out free content and waiting for customers to come to them. They’re a relatively small company (~15 employees) and don’t seem to have a particularly aggressive intent to grow or branch out beyond their core expertise. I can’t say this approach hasn’t worked for them, but I would guess that they could grow their name recognition significantly if they experimented with more active promotion.

Baymard幾乎沒有進行積極的營銷也無濟于事。 他們完全依靠發布免費內容并等待客戶來吸引他們。 他們是一家相對較小的公司(約15名員工)，似乎沒有特別進取的意圖來發展或擴展自己的核心專業知識。 我不能說這種方法對他們沒有用，但我想如果他們嘗試更積極的晉升，他們可以大大提高他們的名字知名度。

Baymard建議的示例 (Examples of Baymard recommendations)

You should definitely look through the full list of 200+ Baymard articles at some point if you haven’t, but to give you an idea of the type of things you’ll find, I’ll highlight a few here.

如果您還沒有的話，您絕對應該瀏覽200篇以上的Baymard文章的完整列表 ，但是為了讓您大致了解所找到的東西的類型，在這里我將重點介紹一些內容。

It should be pretty obvious that many of these best practices would have wide ranging applicability beyond just traditional e-commerce. If you’ve ever worked on anything with a search function, settings/accounts page, homepage, form fields, mobile input, or anything else that could also be found in an e-commerce site, you should be able to find Baymard recommendations that are relevant.

很明顯，這些最佳實踐中的許多最佳實踐將不僅具有傳統電子商務的廣泛適用性。 如果您曾經使用搜索功能，設置/帳戶頁面，主頁，表單字段，移動輸入或在電子商務站點中也可以找到的其他內容進行過處理，那么您應該能夠找到有關Baymard的建議，是相關的。

1. Drop-Down Usability: When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Use Them

   下拉可用性：何時應該(不應該)使用它們

2. 9 UX Requirements for Designing a User-Friendly Homepage Carousel (If You Need One)

2. 設計用戶友好的首頁輪播的9 UX要求(如果需要)

3. E-Commerce Checkouts Need to Mark Both Required and Optional Fields Explicitly (Only 24% Do So)

3. 電子商務結帳必須明確標記必填字段和可選字段(只有24％這樣做)

4. Form Field Usability: Avoid Multi-Column Layouts (13% Get It Wrong)

4. 表單字段的可用性：避免多列布局(13％弄錯了)

5. Common Usability Pitfalls of Custom Designed Drop-Downs (31% Have Issues)

5. 定制設計下拉菜單的常見可用性陷阱(31％的問題)

6. 3 Strategies for Handling Accidental ‘Taps’ on Touch Devices

6. 處理觸摸設備上意外“敲擊”的3種策略

7. How to Design ‘Applied Filters’ (42% Get It Wrong)

7. 如何設計“應用的過濾器”(42％弄錯了)

8. 6 Guidelines for Truncation Design

8. 6截斷設計準則

Unlike some puff-pieces you may commonly find online, each of these articles offer multiple specific, actionable, and evidence-based best practices. The amount of research Baymard conducts to generate these recommendations is significantly higher than can be accomplished in individual, one-off studies — especially if you’re only testing limited non-code prototypes instead of fully functional websites or applications.

不像一些粉撲的作品，你通常可以在網上找到的，這些物品的提供多種具體的，可操作的，并以證據為基礎的最佳實踐。 Baymard為產生這些建議而進行的研究數量遠高于單獨的一次性研究所能完成的數量-特別是如果您僅測試有限的非代碼原型而不是功能齊全的網站或應用程序，則尤其如此。

Their recommendations are also shown to be generally true across multiple products— meaning it isn’t likely that your users or use-cases are so unique that these findings would not at least somewhat apply.

他們的建議在多種產品上也普遍適用，這意味著您的用戶或用例不可能如此獨特，以至于這些發現至少不會有所應用。

Each article also comes with a built-in comment section for some additional clarifications, questions, and links. That willingness to expose themselves to dissenting opinions and alternative takes on their own platform is definitely appreciated.

每篇文章還帶有一個內置的注釋部分，用于一些其他的說明，問題和鏈接。 愿意將自己暴露在自己平臺上的不同意見和替代選擇上的意愿得到了肯定。

局限性 (Limitations)

I think Baymard is pretty great, but nothing is perfect.

我認為Baymard很棒，但是沒有什么是完美的。

您仍然需要自己進行測試 (You still need your own testing)

Having access to general research doesn’t replace the need for usability testing your own product, though it does mean you can start your design work with smarter assumptions and spend less time rediscovering common issues.

獲得一般研究并不能代替對您自己的產品進行可用性測試的需要，盡管這確實意味著您可以以更明智的假設開始設計工作，并花費更少的時間重新發現常見問題。

上下文是關鍵 (Context is Key)

When trying to understand a research-based recommendation it’s important to understand the context of the research. Ideally I’d prefer that the underlying raw data, such as timestamped video clips of test sessions, was made available. Without this it can sometimes be a bit difficult to understand the severity or frequency of the issues that their recommendations are based on. I’ve purchased one-off reports before and still been left with some questions along those lines.

在嘗試理解基于研究的建議時，重要的是要了解研究的背景。 理想情況下，我希望提供原始數據，例如帶有時間戳的測試會話視頻片段。 沒有這個，有時可能很難理解他們的建議所基于的問題的嚴重性或頻率。 我以前購買過一次性報告，但仍然遇到一些類似的問題。

I haven’t ever had a full subscription to their service (working on it), so I can’t speak to the amount of context/services offered at that level. I think you do at least get access to some amount of direct user quotes and it’s possible there’s other additional context provided.

我還沒有完全訂閱過他們的服務(正在使用該服務)，所以我無法說出該級別提供的上下文/服務的數量。 我認為您至少可以訪問一定數量的直接用戶引號，并且有可能提供其他附加上下文。

Also, Baymard has existed for 12 years, so you should pay attention to the date of each article as some of the recommendations may have been based on patterns that have fallen out of fashion. They’re generally good at updating things, but it’s something to be aware of.

此外，Baymard已經存在了12年，因此您應該注意每篇文章的日期，因為其中一些建議可能基于過時的模式。 他們通常擅長更新事物，但這是需要注意的事情。

EDIT: Check out Christian’s comment in the comment section below where he elaborates on Baymard’s update strategy & the additional context provided along with Baymard premium.

編輯 ： 在下面的評論部分中 查看Christian的 評論 ，其中他詳細闡述了Baymard的更新策略以及與Baymard premium一起提供的其他上下文。

為什么世界上沒有更多的Baymards？ (Why aren’t there more Baymards in the world?)

Baymard represents more to me than just a repository of research.

對于我來說，Baymard代表的不僅僅是一個研究資料庫。

In some ways it’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about how UX research gets done.

在某些方面，這是關于UX研究如何完成的根本不同的思考方式。

We spend a lot of time on doing studies that uncover things that have probably already been uncovered by other organizations dozens or hundreds of times before. The reality is that very little work is perfectly original or unique. Commonalities exist across different products and product contexts that can be studied and turned into general best practices.

我們花費大量時間進行研究，以發現其他組織數十或數百次以前已經發現的事物。 現實情況是，很少有作品是完全原創或獨特的。 跨不同產品和產品上下文存在共性，可以研究并將其轉變為通用的最佳實踐。

Centralizing the parts of research that can be centralized seems to make a lot of sense.

集中研究可以集中的部分似乎很有意義。

So why don’t we see Baymard-like research companies in areas other than e-commerce? The only one that seems to be remotely comparable is the more widely known Nielsen Norman Group (I’ll cover them at some point too!), but that’s pretty much it.

那么，為什么在電子商務以外的地區卻看不到類似Baymard的研究公司呢？ 唯一似乎可以與之媲美的是知名度更高的尼爾森·諾曼小組 (我也會在某個時候介紹它們！)，但這就是事實。

I can easily imagine a landscape where every distinct product category or subject (video streaming services, mobile apps, news content, enterprise tools/dashboards, accessibility, finance/insurance, etc) has their own Baymard-like research organization focused on uncovering the common best practices within that niche and selling the results. There’s probably even room for multiple companies within the same category. But those companies don’t actually seem to exist. Why?

我可以輕松地想象出一個風景，每個不同的產品類別或主題(視頻流服務，移動應用，新聞內容，企業工具/儀表板，可訪問性，財務/保險等)都有自己的類似于Baymard的研究機構，致力于發現共同點。利基市場中的最佳實踐并出售結果。 同一類別中的多家公司甚至可能還有空間。 但是那些公司似乎實際上并不存在。 為什么？

When asked, Christian has said he doesn’t know why more people aren’t doing what Baymard is.

當被問到時，克里斯蒂安曾說他不知道為什么更多的人沒有去做Baymard。

There are some hurdles which are obvious enough:

有一些明顯的障礙：

• It can take a long time to build up enough research to the point that it’s valuable to start selling it.
  建立足夠的研究可能需要很長時間才能開始銷售它。
• While you can gate access to reports you can’t actually copyright factual information. An organization may have issues dealing with their reports being pirated or their results being freely shared without them benefiting.
  盡管您可以限制對報告的訪問，但實際上您不能對事實信息進行版權保護。 一個組織可能在處理其報告被盜版或自由共享其結果而沒有從中受益的問題。

…but these are both issues that seem surmountable with the right business model.

…但是，這兩個問題對于正確的商業模式而言似乎都是可以克服的。

While I myself don’t really know why there aren’t more Baymard Institutes, my suspicion is that there could be and it just hasn’t happened yet.

雖然我本人并不真正知道為什么沒有更多的Baymard研究所，但我懷疑可能存在，而且還沒有發生。

And if the opportunity exists then the only thing I’m left wondering is when someone’s going to take it.

如果機會存在，那么我唯一想知道的是何時有人要抓住機會。