Tyrone Pardue

User-centric Website design has become standard for successful Websites today. It is the user that controls where he goes and on what he clicks. So from a design perspective, usability is where function truly does meet form.

1. Quality content
2. Understanding how users read
3. Clear navigation
4. Minimizing your demands on the users time 

Quality Content

The quality of your content depends on, well the actual quality of it! It should be well written and engage the reader immediately. The presentation of the message, or the layout of the fonts and the hierarchy of the messages is critical to showing the reader that the content is what they are looking for. But of course, you must know what your target market expects/wants and be sure that your message is right.

Understand How Users Read

The truth is people don’t read as much as they used to. Your target audience is bombarded with information on a minute-by-minute basis in today’s media frenzied world. When they land on a Web page, they ‘scan’ the page to determine if the product they desire, the service they need or the information they want is there.

This eye movement is punctuated with what are called ‘fixations’ or points in time where the eye fixates on a specific piece of information.

How you design your page layout and the presentation of your information must take this into account.  Check out these ‘heat maps’ showing eye tracking:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Present Clear Navigation

User expectations when it comes down to navigation are largely driven by accepted norm. For instance, in the publishing industry, no one would consider putting the publication contents at the back of the book or magazine. People expect it to be in a certain place. Just like page numbers and footnotes.

These kinds of norms are also ever-present online. Don’t create navigation that makes the user have to think about where to go or how it works. Here is an interesting article about CNN’s Website navigation development, discussing the changes they made and why they currently use a horizontal navigation style:

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/04/26/horizontal-navigation

Minimize the User’s Investment of Time

Time is being crunched for everyone, all the time. If you are offering something free on your site like a subscription to your newsletter, a coupon to download or a white paper, keep the process as simple as you can to avoid wasting the users time.

Don’t be too clever with your calls to action or navigation links. Again, convention is your friend here. For instance “sign up” is better than “start now!” “Our services” is better than “explore our services”.

Users hate having to spend time filling out forms. Don’t add to their frustration by making them fill one out for something you could give in a single click (like a case study or a price list).

If you have to use a form, avoid complicated layouts or confusing language. Forms should be as short as possible with a minimum of scrolling required to complete.

37signals do a nice job of their sign-up form for Basecamp:

https://signup.37signals.com/basecamp/Plus/signup

Take the User by the Hand

As a designer coming from a traditional corporate identity, branding and information design background, I used to cringe at the sight of typical Web 2.0 design with it’s larger than life buttons, big headlines, and simplistic instructions often set out in 1-2-3 steps as if the user didn’t have a brain.

But I have since revised my thinking on this because usability studies clearly show Websites benefit from presenting information as simply as possible. Users like it when they don’t have to figure things out. When a user lands on your home page, make sure they have the option to review your product or service with a simple series of clicks, ideally in a slide-show format or even better in a video.

Video is powerful way to simplify your communication. When we were commissioned by UserLytics to design both front and back-ends of their usability testing Website, we also produced a short video that explained the new service in an easy-to-understand way. The link with the most clicks on the site is the video because users can get the information they want quickly and easily in a format they have become so accustomed to.

If you're wondering whether or not your Website is performing the way it should, consider trying the UserLytics testing service. At only $299 for a five-tester analysis, the service is the most economical and effective laboratory standard, remote user testing service available today.

Read more about our work for UserLytics here >

Call me odd, but I have a fetish for great public transit branding.

Yes, I have to admit that inter-modal branding, signage and vehicle livery design just does something for me. I know – it’s weird, but then I am a designer. By nature we designers seek to integrate, clarify and communicate. So when I travel on nicely integrated public transit systems that help me to move easily between one mode of transport and another—systems like London, Berlin, Tokyo and New York—I just get shamelessly excited.

But sadly, I have discovered that for the majority of systems, unfriendliness, confusing information, inconsistency and lack of cooperation between operators is the norm. These problems are exacerbated by the demands to provide more services in an environment where passengers are expecting predictable standards of comfort, accessibility, reliability, frequency and efficiency. They fail to see that passengers are confused by integration and want clarity. Passengers want to see their public transit operators buying into a set of common standards based on their needs and wants. They are looking for a common narrator to guide them from one mode of transit to the next – seamlessly.

There are many points of view when it comes to providing an effective, integrated public transit system. Politicians, operators, engineers, architects and environmentalists all have their own and sometimes oppositional points of view. Unfortunately, many of these perspectives don’t acknowledge what I believe is the most important element of all – the passengers themselves. The resulting communications breakdown is a major barrier to increased public transit usage.

Despite universal acknowledgment that integration is the way forward for public transit, competing interests, old rivalries and territorialism between operators and operating divisions within public transit companies present the biggest threat to successful integration. Much work has yet to be done to build the internal consensus, motivation and will within public transit organizations to do the necessary.

This is where, quite literally, a picture needs to be drawn, to visualize fully what integration means, to trace the passenger’s journey, to encounter and overcome the obstacles, to clarify how information is provided, and to ease movement through the environment.

It is remarkable how graphic images from simple diagrams and maps to slick 3-D animations that include walk throughs and fly-overs enable the viewer to see the concept working in virtual reality. Of course, vision is about more than visualization. It is about a compelling idea that, once communicated well and grasped by the audience, becomes the raison d’être for the brand development and implementation that follows.

Common branding, easy to read printed information, and understandable signage are just the basic requirements for passengers to be truly convinced that integration is a reality– something that can’t easily be achieved without the adoption of a common brand for ‘interchange’. For some people, traveling on an integrated public transit system presents a challenge. Confusion, frustration, embarrassment, and anger are often the results of poor communications design. Even passengers familiar with traveling on public transit find themselves challenged as services are integrated and new systems replace the old.

For example, interchanges are pivotal to the success of any integrated network. The concept is flawed in its implementation if passengers cannot transfer smoothly and seamlessly between services at these hubs. So attention must be paid to every detail. When things go wrong, as they so often do in public transit, communication becomes of paramount importance. Usually the small details (such as an ambiguous message on a sign, or an incorrect placing of an arrow) can lead to big problems for passengers.

For many operators, the cultural change necessary for their organization to make the shift to seeing through the eyes of the passenger from being mainly operations-centric will be difficult. Operators used to judging performance in terms of safety, reliability, and financial return now have additional and less familiar criteria to deal with as they learn about getting the details right in branding, design, information, and customer interface, without losing the big vision. Taking all these issues into consideration will soon be recognized as a vital key to make integration work for the passenger.

This new perspective can help establish consumer trust in a transport network and make the difference between success and failure in the relentless drive towards integration.