Website Design And Usability

How did it feel when you first discovered Text Art in Word? Or when you clicked upon the clipart tab? Wasn’t there an influx of all these colored components into your documents?

People usually get into website designing and development in a bid to satisfy their creative spirit and end up becoming fulltime website designers. Programmers get a chance to work their creative sides through HTML and Web Development.

But there is more to website designing than just creative fulfillment. The kind of fonts used and the page width on display should be a little more than a reflection of personal taste. The scientific aspect of website designing dictates some basic terms to be taken care of so as to ensure a successful and useful website:

Usability Testing
A usable website is one which encourages repeated visits and provides consumers with useful and credible information. Usability tests are done to determine and optimize user traffic towards the same. You can keep your usability test as simple or as elaborate as you want. Anyone can be asked to use and check the website, be it someone from the family or any other unfamiliar user. But you should try and be with them while they test the site to keep a note of all their moves and maintain a track record of what attracts them and what they completely ignore. This would help you identify the weak areas of the web page and work towards strengthening them.

Browser Testing
Testing the website on your favorite browser may not be reason enough for it to be compatible all the other browsers. And don’t forget to check it on the same browser on some other operating system. You should actually check the web page on all the available combination of browser and OS to optimize their smooth functioning.

Desktop Publishing And Established Design Principles
Amateur website designers do not usually have any formal training in graphics and design and thus end up improvising on the same styles and layouts. The basic principles of desktop publishing includes line lengths for readability, colors for emphasis and margins for look that can be translated to the web.

Log files can prove to be an asset to the designer in spite of their tediousness. A log analysis tool can be used to track consumer movements like where they go from the front page, the most clicked element on the web page and web pages that are least popular. You can keep this information handy in reinventing and modifying the website to direct consumer traffic towards the desired place.

The web allows flexibility in terms of changing the layout and design of the web pages. If in case the particular design doesn’t work out or demands some improvising, then changes can be easily induced.

Website design involves a lot of fun and a outlet of creative capabilities but the technical know-how of the scientific aspect makes sure it generates enough consumer traffic to the site.

By: Michael Henderson

Website Design Articles - http://articles.jdapublishing.com/

eMail to Friends

Copy & Paste HTML

Author's Profile: Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson is a skilled web designer and SEO expert, who has successfully completed many web design projects in India and abroad. He expertise in web solutions and web applications comes through in his successful career in the website development industry.

Please Rate The Above Article From The Usability Category
"Website Design And Usability"

Not yet Rated

Syndicate Usability Related Articles Via RSS!

Boost your websites' search engine ranking! Attract more repeat visitors!
Automatically, consistently update your content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS). To syndicate the above article and other Usability related articles on your blog or site, simply click on the XML Icon above to grab the RSS feed -- It's FREE!