The Web underwent drastic changes throughout the years. It has evolved from a static information resource to a dynamic, interactive and collective playground leading to changes in user behavior (as e.g. in the way we read). ‘Users do not navigate on sites searching for information, but rather interact with an online application to complete a certain task’ [1].
Articles in Information design
Web Use and its Effects on User Behavior (1)
Redesigns: join forces with your users!
Involving users in a early stage of the redesign process is essential and valuable. It shows the bottlenecks in the redesigns and provides valuable insight in users’ needs. This can contribute to a more efficient redesign process. It will decrease the costs and increase the quality of the final product. So what user centered design principles should you use while going through the redesign process ‘together’ with users?
Little things: introduction out of the way
The Boxee homepage elegantly solves one of the problems with introduction videos on a homepage. Users first scan or skim for essential information: what is this? And only then decide whether to invest any time and attention in watching a video.
Icons: the art of design and implementation
Icons seem to play a small and humble role on websites, but they can have a huge influence on the comprehensibility of certain information. They need to work as a whole together in a set. But why are they so essential and how to get started on designing them the right way?
Online processes: less is not always more
There seems to be a tendency to try and keep online processes (registration, checkout, etcetera) as short and flat as possible. This could have grown from the false notion that “people won’t click more than three times”, or the idea that longer processes lead to higher drop-off rates. The latter often being true, certainly when the process contains unnecessary steps: you might feel you really need a user’s net income when she is subscribing to your newsletter, she might very well feel differently.
Tool Time: Stop distracting customers on product pages
One of our clients is a very successful online store. The design of their product pages is fairly traditional, and includes a nice old similar items block. This block shows a picture, the price and product name for three similar products.