Designing the user experience

Table of Contents

 Designing the user experience

Once analysis has determined the business and user needs for a site, the site can be designed. The design phase is critical to a successful website since it will determine the quality of experience users of a site have; if they have a good experience they will return, if not they will not! A ‘good experience’ is determined by a number of factors such as those that affect how easy it is to find information:

For example, the structure of the site, menu choices and searching facilities. It is also affected by less tangible factors such as the graphical design and layout of the site. As mentioned at the start of the chapter, design is not solely a paper-based exercise, but needs to be integrated into the prototyping process.
The design should be tested by review with the client and customer to ensure it is appropriate. Since the main reason given for returning to a website is high-quality content, and content effects conversion too, it is important to determine, through analysis, that the content is correct. However, the quality of content is determined by more than the text copy. It is important to achieve high-quality content through design.

Nigel Bevan (1999a) says: 

Unless a website meets the needs of the intended users it will not meet the needs of the organisation providing the website.

Website development should be user-centred, evaluating the evolving design against user requirements.  How can this customer-orientated or user-centred content be achieved? User- centred design starts with understanding the nature and variation within the user groups. According to Bevan (1999a), key issues to consider which are still fundamental for digital experiences, whether desktop or mobile site, app or social network company page;

include: 

● Who are the important users? 

● What is their purpose for accessing the site? 

● How frequently will they visit the site? 

● What experience and expertise do they have?

● What nationality are they? Can they read your language? 

● What type of information are they looking for? 

● How will they want to use the information: read it on the screen, print it or download it?

● What type of browsers will they use? How fast will their communication links be? 

● How large a screen or window will they use, with how many colors Rosenfeld and Morville (2002) suggest four stages of site design that also have a usercentred basis: 

1 Identify different audiences. 

2 Rank importance of each to business. 

3 List the three most important information needs of audience. 

4 Ask representatives of each audience type to develop their own wish lists.

Evaluating designs

A test of effective design for usability is dependent on three areas according to Bevan (1999b):

● Effectiveness – can users complete their tasks correctly and completely?

● Productivity (efficiency) – are tasks completed in an acceptable length of time?

● Satisfaction – are users satisfied with the interaction?

Elements of site design

Once the requirements of the user and marketer are established we turn our attention to the design of the human–computer interface. 

Nielsen (2000) structures his book on web usability according to three main areas, which can be interpreted as follows:

1 site design and structure – the overall structure of the site;

2 page design – the layout of individual pages;

3 content design – how the text and graphic content on each page is designed. There is also the additional area of branding and messaging which is a key part of persuasion, as explained earlier in this Site design and structure The structures created by designers for websites will vary greatly according to their audience and the site’s purpose, but we can make some general observations about common approaches to site design and structure and their influence on consumers. 

These are often known as best practice principles of website design and in this section we will summarise some of the main factors. Of course, there are exceptions to such rules of thumb or ‘heuristics’, but often a design approach that works on one type of site will work on another, particularly if it is a common feature across the majority of sites. Rosen and Purinton (2004) assessed the design factors which influence a consumer (based on questionnaires of a group of students). They believe there are some basic factors that determine the effectiveness of an e-commerce site. 

They group these factors as follows:

● Coherence – simplicity of design, easy to read, use of categories (for browsing products or topics), absence of information overload, adequate font size, uncrowded presentation.

● Complexity – different categories of text.

● Legibility – use of ‘mini home page’ on every subsequent page, same menu on every page, site map. You can see that these authors suggest that simplicity in design is important. Another example of research into website design factors supports the importance of design. They sked students to review sites to assess the credibility of different suppliers based on the website design. 

They considered these factors most important:

Design look 46.1%

Information design/structure 28.5%

Information focus 25.1%

Company motive 15.5%

Usefulness of information 14.8%

Accuracy of information 14.3%

Name recognition and reputation 14.1%.