In designing web pages, a developer must also put great importance in checking its usability feature and not only focus on the design and technical aspects of a website. It may be a simple concept but many web designers often fail to execute it properly or overlook this step in the web development stage. Below is a set of guidelines that must be applied in order to achieve a user-centered web design.
1. Keep users in mind first and involve them in the web process. You can begin by finding out their expectations and including them in the web development process. Discover how your users want to interact in your site and observe them how they conduct in their workplace, analyze their tasks and workflow so you can form concrete assumptions regarding their usability needs. Moreover, you can also ask for direct feedback from the users and organize brainstorming sessions together.
2. Know who your users will be. Asking yourself the following questions and using the answers can serve as your guide in making user-centered related decisions. You can ponder on some questions such as how much experience the users have with computers and the web. Find out what hardware, software, and browsers do the users normally have? What do users need and expect from your web site? What skills and relevant knowledge do the users already possess? Once you have gathered data from these queries, you can effectively apply this to make your site more user-friendly.
3. Carefully analyze the goals and tasks of your users. Pay attention to users and be actively involved with them by finding out questions such as the tasks they need to perform and their method in doing it? Learn more on how they discover and correct errors as well as what their information needs are. You can create a user-centered web page by listening carefully to their requirements and evaluating their workflow process.
4. Feel free to experiment around before finalizing. You can try to explore different methods first to see which approach works best for your user. It is best to consult with a user’s feedback first before making any final web design decisions.
5. Conduct usability tests. You can try to have your site tested with a few subjects through a simple usability testing process. In the end, testing your site thoroughly ensures that it will be much better as a result and it’s the only way you can find out if your particular site has passed the user’s needs.
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