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

Designing for varied technologies


In the previous chapter, we discussed how to create and document a website design effectively. However, apart from a brief discussion of responsiveness and mobile design, we did not consider the technologies through which people would be viewing and interacting with your website.

Here are some examples of people who may be visiting a typical e-commerce website, using very different technologies:

  • A teenager using a game console and a 5-year-old TV
  • A blind accountant using a keyboard and screen reader on a laptop
  • A color-blind developer with a desktop computer and two large external monitors
  • A 70-year-old retiree using a tablet
  • An Arabic speaker who understands basic English, on a smartphone with the language set to Arabic (right to left reading order)

There are various dimensions with which we can consider technologies. In this section, we will discuss designing for input and output; responsive design; designing for different browsers, operating systems, and assistive...