One of the biggest mistakes people make is to confuse accessibility with usability. The two are not only quite different, but the tendency seems to suggest that the former is considered less important than the other. While both must be taken seriously however, a lot of the ideals regarding accessibility are still applicable to usability, and vice versa.
Optimizing a website's usability can aid in making it more accessible, or at least provide a better frame to build from. If your target audience finds the site difficult to use It's likely to be a problem for people who have disabilities or difficulties with learning. By the same token, the degree of consideration to consider accessibility is equally important when it comes to usability.
Prioritizing the User
If you take all the fancy stuff away from Web design, pages are designed for people to use. Do not bother showing every Flash gadget you can pull from your repertoire or bombarding the users' browsers with ad-hoc images leaving you with providing the best service for content delivery you can offer. Before you start putting together ideas or beginning to think about launching Dreamweaver, you should have it in your head that usability means placing the demands of the users first. Remember that designing anything from websites to shoes is judged on how well the final product is able to perform.
This will help you conduct an extremely crucial stages in most design processes and specifically software engineering Elicitation of requirements. Most professional new media agencies are already familiar with the process and use it to establish a stable knowledge of what that the customer expects to see, and the project's success dependent upon meeting it. Whether you are being commissioned to create a site for a particular client or are planning to launch a project which will be more immediate in attracting users, it's important to understand what the needs of the end-user are.
Essential Requirements Elicitation
The main thing to remember about understanding user requirements is that you're unlikely to get them spot on first time. This means that a consistent flow of communication throughout the process of designing is crucial to get as close to their requirements as you can. Engaging with the users, recording what they say and attempting to figure out precisely what they are saying is the only way to meet their needs.
It's also essential to keep in mind that the audience whom you're creating for aren't necessarily privy to the kind of "developer talk" that you are comfortable with. This is where the production of graphical diagrams or descriptive case studies can be used to portray how you see the project moving forward. Navigational flowcharts, example site maps, or even data flow diagrams for eCommerce products are all effective methods of communicating complex information without bewildering others by using technical jargon.Similarly there's no reason to think that an agreed-upon direction for the way visual elements are going 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 prototyping more sophisticated page elements such as interfaces, navigational structures and interfaces gets under way.
Professional Help
If you're not enthusiastic about conducting extensive usability studies yourself or you realize that it's not practical, you can always rely on the services of others.
Professional consultancies, also known as specialist firms are common and provide complete solutions that span all major steps. They typically will provide a preliminari assessment to determine whether it is truly in need of the complete usability evaluation, and how best to pursue everything. it then really comes down to identifying what needs and goals are motivating the Web site, or establishing what it's expected to achieve. This can be followed by a detailed analysis of what the desired population will be, meaning a broad segment of the population could be researched.
A representative sample of "typical users' is usually asked to attend testing sessions that will observe participants as they use the site. This could range from asking them to browse the site's content without restriction for a certain length of time, to assigning the participants up with specific tasks and scenarios.
Although they are encouraged to think aloud' at all times the feedback of users is tracked and recorded by sophisticated tracking software or video. Designers are encouraged to sit at the table during sessions and hear how users perceive the website, and any suggestions for improvement. When the sessions are over the session, participants are required to submit their overall impressions of the website during detailed interview sessions. The findings are compiling into comprehensive reports that form the basis of any future design revisions as well as new projects that emerge from the findings.
conducting user surveys
If gathering a group of your customers isn't feasible however, there are other ways of getting feedback. A lot of websites will offer contact forms or email addresses so visitors can submit their opinions, however it's not guaranteed that you'll get the kind of valuable response you want. It is more beneficial to offer online questionnaires that can gauge user opinion more effectively.
Using a specialist program allows you to create complex interactive surveys quickly and effortlessly. The advantage here is that the survey results are logged on the server, where the more thorough statistical analysis can be processed and interpreted when administering any practical improvements. There are some off the shelf software solutions that will perform remote evaluations of user actions when they occur in real-time. This method of evaluation should be clearly explained to users prior to their participation in it, since tracking their actions secretly could compromise the provisions of the law on data protection, and certainly result in mistrust tampa web design if it were discovered.
However, some interesting data about the areas of your website or the interface would be revealed from the way different people use the site. By tracking the path of links or cursor activity you will be able to determine how navigation was perceived, and maybe how effective visual signs such as buttons, menus and anchors are at controlling the actions of your audience.
This gives one of the most accurate images of user perception, because the user is likely to behave as they naturally do when browsing the Web. When under more strict "lab" conditions, they might be pushed by the surroundings and the presence of an observer, or feel conscious of the amount of time they are performing. This could also result in an adverse impact if they were to be expected to use peripherals, hardware, operating systems or browsing software they might not be familiar with.