I was talking to the local UPA Perth chapter (in formation) about aspects of UX visualisation. It was an interesting topic that brought up a good number of discussion points.
One point was on the design process. The way we design. The way that we just don’t allow ourselves time to fail at the design. Or if we do, it is hidden in the back room so we can appear to be “magical design wizards” that produce the perfect product, interface design, IA or the like.
I have been involved with many user surveys over the years. Some have gone well. Some have been a complete waste of time and effort. The main distinction between them is the surveys that were professionally developed and pretested would succeed. The ones that had been knocked together by a well meaning manager were often destined to failure.
It comes down to this – unless you have experience designing surveys, then it’s best to either hire someone who has had experience and training, or find another way to collect the same information.
The other day I was chatting away with a potential client, I asked for their phone number, as you do. They replied with 1800 GETT AWEB (no that’s not real) . I asked what that was a real number, there was silence for a moment, then “I have no idea,” was the honest reply.
It’s not that phone names are anything new, but it did get me thinking.
The use of the phrase (name) as a number was all well and good if I wanted to remember the number. It’s well know that people remember words and phrases better in general than they do strings or numbers. Clearly why phone number names are so popular.
You have built the perfect web site, the colours invoke the right emotional response, the visual imagery leads customers to the relevant information while allowing the audience to personally relate to the site. The content is ideal for the web, not to much but enough to convince people of the service. The major call to actions are in the right locations, and easy to find. Everything is set, the web site is ready to take on the world!
Still no matter how perfect your site is, if the last step, when they encounter the web form, isn’t streamlined and usable, the rest is a waste of time.
Gary Barber
I'm an independent User Experience Designer. I design and enhance complete web user experiences (websites), usable web interfaces, build web architectures, prototypes, conduct usability & accessibility tests or audits.
I just make your websites better than they are.
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