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

Building a solid information architecture


One of the fundamental components of a successful website is the navigation. How does the user navigate through a website to find what they're looking for? If the menu items are not labeled correctly and clearly, or the information is not categorized accurately under the associated sections, the user will find it difficult to find what they're looking for and leave the site with no intention of coming back because they'll be under the impression that the website does not have the particular information they were looking for. In most cases this is not true, the information is indeed on the website, but it's not always easily accessible to the user.

Thus the IA, the way information is structured on a website, is an important component that's often overlooked because it's seen as an easy thing to create. How hard can it be to create a menu for a website, right? Creating a solid IA for a website has a couple of facets that need to be considered such as...