One of the biggest mistakes that people make is to mix usability with accessibility. Both are distinct and distinct, but the perception appears to be that one is deemed less significant in comparison to the other. Though both should be considered seriously there is a good chance that a lot of the concepts concerning accessibility still apply to usability and vice versa.
Enhancing the usability of a site will assist in making it more accessible or at a minimum, provide a better frame to build on. If your audience is finding the site hard to use, it'll almost certainly be difficult for those with disabilities or learning difficulties. The same goes for accessibility. the level of care in addressing accessibility is just as valid in terms of usability.
Making The User First
If you strip everything fancy from web design, websites are ultimately being built for users to use. Don't bother displaying every Flash gimmick you can muster out of your toolbox or flooding users' browsers with bandwidth-hogging images, and you're left with providing the most effective content delivery service that you could offer. Before you even start formulating ideas or even thinking about firing up Dreamweaver you must make it clear in your mind that usability means putting the requirements of the user first. Remember that designing anything from footwear to websites is evaluated based on how the final product does.
This will help you carry out one of the crucial phases in all design processes and software engineering in particular: requirements elicitation. The majority of professional agencies for new media have already mastered this procedure, and will employ it to develop an idea of what that users expect to see, with project success based on meeting that. If you're being asked to develop a website for a specific customer or hope to launch something that will more directly attract traffic, it will be crucial to know what the expectations of the user are.
The requirements for HTML0 are Elicitation
The most important thing to keep in mind regarding understanding the needs of users is that you're not likely to meet them exactly the first time. Therefore, a constant stream of communications throughout the design process is essential to get the best results as possible. Talking to the people who are using the product while recording their words and trying to determine the exact meaning of what they say is the only sure-fire way to meet their needs.
It's also essential to keep in mind that those whom you're creating for aren't necessarily able to comprehend the type of 'developer speak' that you're comfortable with. This is why the creation of graphical diagrams or descriptive case studies can be effectively used to illustrate what you envision the project going. Examples of navigational flowcharts, site maps, and possibly data flow diagrams that are used for eCommerce are all great ways of presenting complex info without confusing other people with technical jargon.Similarly there's no reason to think that an agreed-upon direction for the how visual elements will be arranged could not be accomplished using mock-ups of page designs. Digital flat drawings of potential design templates are able to be presented and analyzed before creating more advanced page elements, interfaces and navigational structures gets under way.
Professional Help
If you're not tampa web design enthusiastic about conducting extensive usability studies yourself or you realize that it's not practical, you can always rely on the expertise of other people.
Professional consultancies, also known as specialist agencies are common, and offer a range of comprehensive solutions that cover all major steps. Typically, they'll offer a brief evaluation to ascertain whether it really requires the full usability treatment, and the best way to go about it. It then comes down to determining what requirements and goals drive the website and determining the goals it's supposed to accomplish. This could result in a thorough study of what the intended audience will be, and a cross section of the audience group is possible to study.
A small sample of "typical users' are typically invited to participate in testing sessions which will allow users to observe how they navigate the website. This can range from simply asking them to navigate through the website content at their own pace for a specific amount of time, or assigning them certain tasks and scenarios.
While encouraged to 'think aloud throughout the day Their feedback is constantly monitored and recorded either by the most sophisticated software for tracking or video. Designers are encouraged to sit at the table during sessions and hear how users perceive the website, and any suggestions for improvement. At the finish the session, participants are required to submit their overall impressions of the site in thorough interview sessions. The findings are compiled into detailed reports that form the basis of any design changes in the future and new projects that arise from the research findings.
Participating in User Research
If putting together a representative sampling of your users isn't a realistic option There are other methods of receiving feedback. Many sites will include email addresses or contact forms for users to submit their thoughts, but this doesn't ensure that you'll get the type of feedback you'd like to receive. it can be more useful to provide electronic questionnaires to better gauge the opinion of your users.
A specialist software will allow you to publish advanced interactive surveys swiftly and effortlessly. The advantage is that the survey results can be logged to a server before an extensive analysis of the data can be processed and used to make practical changes. There are some available software applications that can perform remote assessments of user actions in real time. This kind of approach must be made clearly known to visitors before they participate, as tracking their behaviours in secret could violate areas of the Data Protection Act and will certainly cause suspicion if the information is discovered.
But, there are some fascinating data pertaining to areas of the site or the actual interface will be discovered by the different ways people interact with the content. Just by tracking link paths or the activity of your cursor it is possible to ascertain how people view navigation and possibly how effective visual signposts like menus, buttons, and anchors are in directing your viewers' actions.
This is one of the truest pictures of the user's perception because the subject is likely to behave the way they would while browsing the Web. In more formal "lab" conditions, they could feel pressured by the environment as well as the presence of an examiner or are aware of the time they are spending to complete the task. It would also have negative effects on their performance if they were to be were to be expected to use peripherals, hardware, operating systems or browsing software they might not be familiar with.