What is User Centered Design?
User centred design focuses on giving the website visitor the most positive viewing and interactive experience. Expectations of what a good website should offer are continually expanding. If you cannot capture users’ attention as soon as they access the website there is a good chance they will immediately leave. Once you have got their initial attention they need to find that site navigation is completely straightforward. If you want to encourage them to buy products or services the information presented has be geared to their interests. The steps for making a purchase also need to be clearly set out. All of these reasons justify putting what is best and easiest for the user at the heart of the design process.
To craft such user-centred web designs we carry out a succession of usability tests and evaluations. We find out as much information as possible from you about your customers and carry out our own research. The type of user who needs to be catered for naturally varies with the nature of the client’s website. Our design process therefore begins with understanding your typical user and their expectations. For example, are they usually very hi-tech savvy or perhaps people not raised in this online generation? After making our typical user profiles we simulate user access scenarios e.g., users coming from a desktop or mobile device. We also simulate user activities, check how well our designs perform, and make whatever changes are needed.
Our website development invariably involves an iterative design process. It requires the combined effort of highly skilled software developers, GUI specialists, online marketing experts and others. It encompasses the entire user experience from opening the home webpage, browsing through products, requesting further information and not to forget that all important filling shopping carts. All this requires some really intensive research and design work but we know it is well worth the extra effort to make a website that your customers will enjoy visiting and want to come back to again and again.
