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

Understanding the importance of responsive, accessible, and universal design


The responsive, accessible, and universal design guidelines are similar in that they promote creating designs that are usable and enjoyable by a variety of end users, especially those who are not like you.

They are different in that they focus on different end user characteristics, although there are some overlaps. Let's take look at the following definitions:

  • Responsive design is about creating fluid designs through HTML and CSS that adapt seamlessly to screen size, resolution, and aspect ratio, so that the layout remains optimally usable and attractive
  • Accessible design is about creating designs that are usable and enjoyable by people with disabilities, including physical, sensory, cognitive, and neurological problems
  • Universal design is about creating designs that are usable and enjoyable by everyone, regardless of age, status, culture, ethnicity, or ability

Interestingly, none of these ideas originated in the web...