January 25, 2010 -
What makes a website work? What makes it successful? Think about some of your best website experiences. Were they flashy web extravaganzas or, more than likely, simple, elegant websites? The best web experience—regardless of the site—all have one thing in common: they do exactly what you want them to do without you having to think about it.
This doesn't mean websites should be bland or unimpressionable, but the most efficient and effective websites have simplicity and usability at their core—even if it means excluding the latest special effects and widget technologies. Websites should provide the information users want in a manner that is intuitive and comprehensive enough to ensure that they are interacting with your business in a meaningful way.
When websites blend intuitive functionality with outstanding design and innovative technical features, it's a beautiful thing. With that in mind, here are some of the steps we take at DKY to create compelling, user-centric web experiences.
Define the Problem
What are your goals for a website? What kind of customer experience are you trying to create? What value does this site offer to the customer? What are your competitors doing? In a nutshell, what is your site's role? This is important because a site designed as an information portal is different than one for e-commerce. When we know what your site is supposed to do, we can work together to determine the best way to measure success.
Determine the Content
In the end, the user experience can only rise to the level of the website content. We need to determine what's going to be in a website before we can create the best way for users to interact with it. Laying out the desired content helps us determine functionally as well as map out a way to populate and maintain that content. It is critical to plan for this with the long-term in mind so updates and changes are easy and provide your users with relevant, timely information.
Know Your Users
User-centric is the goal, remember? This is where traditional customer research can provide invaluable insight. If we can understand and incorporate users' web habits and preferences, we are well on our way toward a user-centric website. It's also important to involve potential users during the design process. Usability testing can help prioritize crucial tasks and functionality. By directly observing a user performing certain tasks, we can make more informed design decisions. Having the user involved throughout the process makes the end result that much more user-centric.
Plan it Out
This is the most important step in creating a user-centric website. Before we can jump into graphic design we must take a good look at critical user tasks, structure and functionality. At DKY we use a simple set of visual-based documents to map out these features. There are often many stakeholders in the decision-making process so it's very important that everyone understands how the site is going to function. By using simple visual-based representations we help everybody focus on the user interaction with the site without getting bogged down in the technical details. Once the group determines the best user experience, the site architecture and programming process can begin.
Make it Pretty
It's time to make your website actually look like a website. Once we have the functionality and structure in place we can focus on graphic design without compromising the user experience. At this point, a designer will work within your brand standards to design an aesthetic that is as elegant as it is functional.
Make it Work
Now that we've laid the groundwork for a great user experience, our development team can begin to put it all together. We have the expertise in house, or can work with your internal departments to make it happen. Quality assurance is always top of mind every step of the way. What good is design and functionality if it doesn't work? Exhaustive multi-platform testing and validation ensures that your users will experience the site as it was meant to be.
Go Live
Give your business the best chance at success by taking the time to develop an online experience your customers will enjoy. Build a site that your consumers will return to time and time again.
