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.

当我向拥有10多年经验的用户研究员提到Baymard Institute时，我意识到我想写这篇文章。他们不知道我在说什么。 他们并不孤单！ 以前我在这个问题上扬眉吐气。

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

如果您是用户研究人员(或什至与UX，网站或数字产品有切线关系的任何领域)，Baymard可能会为您提供一些价值(很可能已经拥有了)，并且值得您注意。 请继续关注我的想法

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

我保证我不隶属于他们。 我只是忠实粉丝！

Baymard是谁？ (Baymard who?)

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

Baymard研究所是由丹麦的Christian Holst和Jamie Appleseed在2000年成立的“独立网络可用性研究所” 〜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.

该组织建立在中心论点上，即设计决策通常是主观或政治上做出的，并且有可能采用更多基于证据的方法。

…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.

…我知道是因为我们与许多财富500强企业合作，而您认为他们拥有一支庞大的团队，只是确切了解其站点的每个部分都在发生什么。 但是，当您开始与他们合作时，很显然，有时候他们之所以为自己的滤波器设计这种特殊设计的原因是因为Mike如此决定。 迈克在设计部门。 [他]如此决定，没有人反对他，这就是为什么他们拥有这种过滤设计的原因-并不是因为他们花费数小时来研究特定设计的每一点。

— Christian Holst

— 克里斯蒂安·霍尔斯特 ( 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)还研究了人机交互领域的学术研究，并指出他们所看到的趋势并不像可能的那样在商业上立即适用。

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.

为了解决这一现实问题，Baymard出售了基于行业领先网站上进行的数以万计的内部可用性测试而生成的研究报告(及相关服务)。

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.

完整的报告需要付费(按需订购或通过订阅)，但Baymard还在其网站上发布了250多个免费提供的文章-每个文章都包含许多基于证据的建议。

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.

简而言之，这些文章是一些最佳的免费资源，可用于了解具体的可用性最佳实践。 对于UX设计的新手来说，它们是我的推荐建议之一。

Baymard实际上被低估了吗？ (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绝不是未知数。 实际上，它们已经被耐克，Etsy，沃尔玛等数百家知名品牌使用。 但是他们获得的认可似乎仍然与他们提供的价值不成比例。 我认为他们在社交媒体上的追随者相对较少，在Twitter上的追随者少于4,000，在LinkedIn上的追随者则只有1,500，而在UX设计和研究圈子中，它们似乎并不是家喻户晓的名字。

I think there are a few reasons for this.

我认为有几个原因。

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将自己定位为特定于电子商务的研究小组。 那些不在电子商务中工作的人可能会很快忽略他们的报告和调查结果的相关性，即使他们的许多调查结果实际上广泛适用于其他领域。 狭窄的利基市场可以帮助他们更好地与可以为其提供最大价值的品牌建立联系，但这是以向更广泛的UX社区传达其价值为代价的。

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几乎没有进行积极的营销也无济于事。 他们完全依靠发布免费内容并等待客户来吸引他们。 他们是一家相对较小的公司(约15名员工)，似乎没有特别进取的意图来发展或扩展自己的核心专业知识。 我不能说这种方法对他们没有用，但我想如果他们尝试更积极的晋升，他们可以大大提高他们的名字知名度。

Baymard建议的示例 (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.

如果您还没有的话，您绝对应该浏览200篇以上的Baymard文章的完整列表 ，但是为了让您大致了解所找到的东西的类型，在这里我将重点介绍一些内容。

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.

很明显，这些最佳实践中的许多最佳实践将不仅具有传统电子商务的广泛适用性。 如果您曾经使用搜索功能，设置/帐户页面，主页，表单字段，移动输入或在电子商务站点中也可以找到的其他内容进行过处理，那么您应该能够找到有关Baymard的建议，是相关的。

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

   下拉可用性：何时应该(不应该)使用它们

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

2. 设计用户友好的首页轮播的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. 电子商务结帐必须明确标记必填字段和可选字段(只有24％这样做)

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

4. 表单字段的可用性：避免多列布局(13％弄错了)

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

5. 定制设计下拉菜单的常见可用性陷阱(31％的问题)

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

6. 处理触摸设备上意外“敲击”的3种策略

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

7. 如何设计“应用的过滤器”(42％弄错了)

8. 6 Guidelines for Truncation Design

8. 6截断设计准则

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.

不像一些粉扑的作品，你通常可以在网上找到的，这些物品的提供多种具体的，可操作的，并以证据为基础的最佳实践。 Baymard为产生这些建议而进行的研究数量远高于单独的一次性研究所能完成的数量-特别是如果您仅测试有限的非代码原型而不是功能齐全的网站或应用程序，则尤其如此。

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.

他们的建议在多种产品上也普遍适用，这意味着您的用户或用例不可能如此独特，以至于这些发现至少不会有所应用。

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.

每篇文章还带有一个内置的注释部分，用于一些其他的说明，问题和链接。 愿意将自己暴露在自己平台上的不同意见和替代选择上的意愿得到了肯定。

局限性 (Limitations)

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

我认为Baymard很棒，但是没有什么是完美的。

您仍然需要自己进行测试 (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.

获得一般研究并不能代替对您自己的产品进行可用性测试的需要，尽管这确实意味着您可以以更明智的假设开始设计工作，并花费更少的时间重新发现常见问题。

上下文是关键 (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.

在尝试理解基于研究的建议时，重要的是要了解研究的背景。 理想情况下，我希望提供原始数据，例如带有时间戳的测试会话视频片段。 没有这个，有时可能很难理解他们的建议所基于的问题的严重性或频率。 我以前购买过一次性报告，但仍然遇到一些类似的问题。

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.

我还没有完全订阅过他们的服务(正在使用该服务)，所以我无法说出该级别提供的上下文/服务的数量。 我认为您至少可以访问一定数量的直接用户引号，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已经存在了12年，因此您应该注意每篇文章的日期，因为其中一些建议可能基于过时的模式。 他们通常擅长更新事物，但这是需要注意的事情。

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.

编辑 ： 在下面的评论部分中 查看Christian的 评论 ，其中他详细阐述了Baymard的更新策略以及与Baymard premium一起提供的其他上下文。

为什么世界上没有更多的Baymards？ (Why aren’t there more Baymards in the world?)

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

对于我来说，Baymard代表的不仅仅是一个研究资料库。

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

在某些方面，这是关于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.

我们花费大量时间进行研究，以发现其他组织数十或数百次以前已经发现的事物。 现实情况是，很少有作品是完全原创或独特的。 跨不同产品和产品上下文存在共性，可以研究并将其转变为通用的最佳实践。

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义。

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，为什么在电子商务以外的地区却看不到类似Baymard的研究公司呢？ 唯一似乎可以与之媲美的是知名度更高的尼尔森·诺曼小组 (我也会在某个时候介绍它们！)，但这就是事实。

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?

我可以轻松地想象出一个风景，每个不同的产品类别或主题(视频流服务，移动应用，新闻内容，企业工具/仪表板，可访问性，财务/保险等)都有自己的类似于Baymard的研究机构，致力于发现共同点。利基市场中的最佳实践并出售结果。 同一类别中的多家公司甚至可能还有空间。 但是那些公司似乎实际上并不存在。 为什么？

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

当被问到时，克里斯蒂安曾说他不知道为什么更多的人没有去做Baymard。

There are some hurdles which are obvious enough:

有一些明显的障碍：

• It can take a long time to build up enough research to the point that it’s valuable to start selling it.
  建立足够的研究可能需要很长时间才能开始销售它。
• 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.
  尽管您可以限制对报告的访问，但实际上您不能对事实信息进行版权保护。 一个组织可能在处理其报告被盗版或自由共享其结果而没有从中受益的问题。

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

…但是，这两个问题对于正确的商业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.

虽然我本人并不真正知道为什么没有更多的Baymard研究所，但我怀疑可能存在，而且还没有发生。

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

如果机会存在，那么我唯一想知道的是何时有人要抓住机会。