Web Design 320
Start of Week 5
What is our syllabus topic?
User Experience
"Principles and skills of web design using current W3C standards, website access, usability and evaluation"
What will you do?
- Learn about Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics
- Compare and contrast sites to determine what is more or less effective, in an effort to define what we mean when we call a website "well designed"
- Maintain a journal for the week
- Review the history of the launch of Healthcare.gov as a case study in usability and user experience issues
- Read W3C and government standards on usability and accessibility
- Participate DAILY in Slack conversations
What is user experience?
It's a buzzword. A buzzword means that many people start using the term enthusiastically, most without a solid reference point. Thus, it means many different things to people. It means one thing to Marketing Departments. It means another to Ph.D/faculty researchers. It means a third thing to consumers... and so on.
Aspects of UX
- High-level, conceptual/strategic definition
- Information
- User Needs
- Business Goals
- Medium-level, user-centered definition
- Usability
- Expectation
- Content
- Timing
- Interface
- Low-level, detailed, tactical definition
- Visual design
- Information architecture
- Interaction design
- Content strategy
-
- User interface
- Typography
- Usability
- Functionality
This week will cover:
-
Healthcare.gov
- user needs
- business goals
- expectation
- timing
- exposure to traditional issues of information design such as ethics, copyright, accessibility, credibility -
Nielsen's heuristics
- usability
- user interface
- expectation
- functionality
-
W3C, Section 508, Usability.gov
- accessibility
- standards
- exposure to some of the more traditional issues of information design such as ethics, copyright, accessibility, credibility
- appreciate how technology changes (and does not change) some of these issues