Book Image

UX for the Web

By : Marli Ritter, Cara Winterbottom
Book Image

UX for the Web

By: Marli Ritter, Cara Winterbottom

Overview of this book

If you want to create web apps that are not only beautiful to look at, but also easy to use and fully accessible to everyone, including people with special needs, this book will provide you with the basic building blocks to achieve just that. The book starts with the basics of UX, the relationship between Human-Centered Design (HCD), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and the User-Centered Design (UCD) Process; it gradually takes you through the best practices to create a web app that stands out from your competitors. You’ll also learn how to create an emotional connection with the user to increase user interaction and client retention by different means of communication channels. We’ll guide you through the steps in developing an effective UX strategy through user research and persona creation and how to bring that UX strategy to life with beautiful, yet functional designs that cater for complex features with micro interactions. Practical UX methodologies such as creating a solid Information Architecture (IA), wireframes, and prototypes will be discussed in detail. We’ll also show you how to test your designs with representative users, and ensure that they are usable on different devices, browsers and assistive technologies. Lastly, we’ll focus on making your web app fully accessible from a development and design perspective by taking you through the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Chapter 4. Best Practices for Usability Within the User Interface (UI)

As covered in Chapter 1, The Fundamentals of UX, within the UCD process, each of the steps plays a significant role in creating a quality product that users enjoy to use. The research and concept phases are essential for laying the foundation, but the visual design brings the concept to life. Websites can be beautiful, but they also need to be easy to use, by using industry standard user interface best practices such as Google's Material Design and iOS Human Interface Guidelines the UI will not just be aesthetically pleasing, but will also tick all the usability requirements. The following topics in this chapter will lead the journey through best practices for UI design:

  • Origin of UI and the birth of the Graphic User Interface (GUI)
  • Color theory and the impact color psychology has on the user
  • The relation between color and web accessibility
  • Best design practices such as Google Material Design and iOS Human Interface Guidelines...