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Designing for the Web
 Web site design
 Web page design
 Web usability
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Your Goal
 Create a web site that is:
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useful
compelling
attractive
easy to use
satisfying
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Web Development Team
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Content provider
Information architect
Graphic designer
Writer / editor
Programmer
Project Manager
Usability Expert
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Grissom
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Mission Statement
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What are you creating and why?
Who will use it?
What will they want to do?
How will you know if your site is
successful?
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Site Design
 Content
 Organization
 Navigation system
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Grissom
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Content
 What do your visitors want?
 What information do you want to
provide?
 What do similar organizations provide?
 What do you already have?
 What do you need to create?
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Grissom
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Activity #1
 Develop a mission statement
 one sentence
 must contain audience, purpose, and
content
 Develop an initial inventory of content
 on your own
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Grissom
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Organization Schemes
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White pages
Yellow pages
Supermarket
Your computer
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Grissom
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Hierarchy
 no more than seven categories
 three clicks and you are there
Home Page
Topic 1 Topic 2
Topic 3 Topic 4 Topic 5 Topic 6 Topic 7
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Grissom
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Navigation System
 How do I get home?
 Where am I?
 Where else can I go?
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Grissom
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Examples
 across the top
 down the left side
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Grissom
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Additional Navigation
 Site map
 overall view
 Index
 alphabetical list of terms
 Search facility
 requires special expertise
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Grissom
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Labels are important
 Strive to make labels clear & concise
 Be consistent
 Follow convention
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Home / Main
Search / Find
Contact Us
About Us
Help / FAQ
News / What’s New
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Grissom
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Activity #2
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refrigerator
socks
living room
dictionary
milk
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bureau
kitchen
bookshelf
bedroom
a live elephant
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Grissom
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Web Page Design
 KISS
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Grissom
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Home Page
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What can I do at this site?
No scrolling should be necessary!
Attractive
This is your first impression
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Grissom
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Web Writing
 remember visitors only scan
 keep it short
 at least 50% of normal text
 use headings
 use bullet lists
 put conclusion first
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Grissom
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Common Page Guidelines
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dark text on light background
limit visitor scrolling
limit use of images
limit use of animations
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Be Aware of Browser Features
 Back button
 do not provide your own
 Colored links
 do not change default
 Bookmarks
 provide meaningful title
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Proofread
 errors will kill the professional appearance of
your site
 use a spell checker
 use a grammar checker?
 ask someone else to check grammar
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Grissom
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Web Usability Measures
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What are some indications of ‘user friendly’?
Ease of learning
Improved user performance
Low user error rate
User satisfaction
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Web Design Guidelines
 Know the user
 Involve the user during design
 Design a navigation system
 Where am I?
 How can I get home?
 Where else can I go?
Web Design Guidelines by Scott
Grissom
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Usability Evaluation Strategies
 Checklist
 User testing
 Usability inspection
 bring in a usability expert
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Grissom
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Usability Checklist
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Are all links correct?
Is there a link to home on every page?
Is navigation consistent on every page?
Does each page have an appropriate title?
Did I proofread all content?
Create user profiles
 can they do what they will likely want to do?
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Grissom
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User Testing
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Identify appropriate users
Select appropriate tasks
Watch, listen, but don’t talk!
Ask volunteers to complete a survey
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Grissom
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A Typical Survey
 Strive for unbiased questions
 Use a rating scale 1-5
Finding the information was:
difficult 1 2 3 4 5 easy
Appearance of the site was:
ugly 1 2 3 4 5 beautiful
Overall, the site was:
really sucky 1 2 3 4 5 excellent
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Grissom
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Some Sample Sites
 Let’s take a look at some of your
favorite sites….
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Grissom
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Activity #3
 Go to a competitors site
 Kick the tires and look for usability
problems
 What do you like?
 What do you think will cause problems?
 What do you hate?
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Grissom
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Additional Resources
 Usable Web
 the mother of all sites
 http://www.usableweb.com/
 Yale Web Style Guide
 http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.ht
ml
 Link Checking Software
 Xenu's Link Sleuth - freeware
 http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
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Grissom
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Summary (1)
 Web site design
 start with a mission statement
 plan and organize the site
 design a navigation system
 Web page design
 be concise
 be consistent
 proofread
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Grissom
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Summary (2)
 Web usability
 you are NOT the typical visitor
 find out what problems the typical visitor has with
your site
 Web Usability Evaluation
 discover usability problems BEFORE it is too late
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Grissom
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