This is nothing new: the visual design has a decisive role in the perception of quality of a website. The visual and aesthetic impact on the confidence and credibility of a website. For any company or institution, the web design of your website is a key piece of its institutional identity.
But the design of a Web site only from our visual training as a graphic piece or more as an application over the corporate image, it would be a mistake.
A site that meets the goals of our visual communication client can be very poor in other factors, such as ease of use, ease of finding information, download speed, readability or accessibility. And very good that we design our web seems to us or our customers, these factors will ultimately affect the way in determining the perception that will end users.
In other words, if users seeking information not found or was frustrated when trying to perform the tasks for which went to the site, obviously little our efforts to improve the visual quality. Users will quickly leave or to another site. With a single click will suffice.
It is at this point where we face the concept of usability.
A definition of usability
The usability of a product or system is an empirical measure and on its usefulness, ease of learning, performance and appreciation of their users.
This
Usability can not be determined by evaluating a product in isolation. She was determined for a particular set of users in a context of use. That's why we say that it is a relative measure. and that is why we do not believe there are absolute usability rules and equally applicable in all situations.
Web Design seen from the Usability
Some experts describe tend to usability web graphic design as a kind of decorative layer (the "Look and Feel") that should be added to the prototype once it passed the test user.
On these positions must be said that investigating the users is not the same as designing. The research and usability tests give us information on problems identified and we can draw a few lines of action to resolve them but not enough to design the final design with all its elements.
At the other extreme, many of the sites we design, are not evaluated on its usability, whether because of our inexperience, for lack of resources, or perhaps because of the absence of a more comprehensive and multidisciplinary projects to address.
In the commercial websites disregard for the users can cause economic loss. But this can be more severe on the websites of state agencies or public services which should not only aim at higher goals of usability and to a wider audience, but also begin to meet the specifications of accessibility (in Spanish). By not doing so, they are excluding a very high percentage of the population's access to information and the ability to manage processes across the network.
One solution: web design user-focused
The methods of user-centered design (in English) allow us to achieve goals of usability much higher than we could achieve by applying only intuition, recipes or calculating what we will assume that users with the site (or product) .
Many of the techniques are based on engaging users in all stages of web design. This is not designed for users to design, but with users.
But this is not so simple. For example does a usability test (in Spanish) require knowledge, time, dedication and experience? In addition, we have to get users to correct and earmark a portion of the budget to pay them.
The test basically delivers a list of tasks to users and watches the video while trying to complete each task without our help. It's incredibly rewarding to observe users frustrated again and again with our web design. No interaction design conceived only from our intuition or experience will be foolproof. That's why it's advisable to start testing with low-fidelity prototypes (in English) (even on paper), in the early stages of the process of web design.
The organizational structure and the labeling of a website will also be designed from the mental model of users. For example, the technique of ordering cards (card sorting) (in English) allows us to determine how users classified, and grouped information to include.
The design and usability need to be supplemented
The web design as a discipline can bring knowledge and experience very enriching for usability and accessibility. For example in areas such as typography, readability, emphasis, style, color theory, space, composition and visual balance.
Usability and Information Architecture contribute their methods of web design user-focused, assessment techniques, principles heuristic (in Spanish), 40 years of studies on Human Computer Interaction (HCI), all past experiences to the Web from the web design company of Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) and the contribution of science as an archival and library spaces for shared organize and label information.
The design and usability can and must be supplemented as disciplines. The advantages can be clearly seen from both sides. A good visual design does not exclude the usability but that the favors, the same way that a high degree of usability and respect for the users contribute to improving the image of any company or institution.
Direct to India is an Web design India, web design Chennai, Graphics Design, Web development Company offering their excellent Services to their clients since 2007 by visuals India
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