When designing and creating a web page, the user experience becomes one of the most important elements to guarantee its success.

In fact, if you manage to give the user an experience attractive, simple and pleasant when he moves around your website, the chances that he will come back or stay longer times multiply exponentially.

This is where the methodology known as user-centred web design arises, which prioritizes the wishes of the consumer to optimize their experience while browsing a site web.

User-centered web design

Many times abbreviated as DCU, it is a work methodology characterized to address and guide the entire process of web design and development of a web page towards the user.

It is a type of approach implemented in web design, where work is done by and for the user, taking into account their needs, characteristics, goals, and interests.

DCU is an iterative process where designers, at each stage of the design process, focus on users and their needs in order to create great products and websites accessibility and usability.

Stages of user-centred web design

To properly implement the DCU methodology it is necessary to involve consumers from the beginning.

It seeks to know what they are like, what they need, for what purpose they use the site, what is their reaction to the design, etc. All this is studied in the various stages of the DCU, which are as follows:

Planning

The planning stage is the most important, because it is where we gather information and data on the requirements necessary to start the development of the site.

At this stage, we seek to study the potential audience to recognize:

Your needs.
Your goals.
Its characteristics.
Your opinions.
His wishes.
Your experiences.

Survey methods are used for data collection, specifically:

Interviews.
Surveys.
Questionnaires.

It is required to obtain clear and precise information about the consumer that can be analysed, achieving, in this way, to create a solid basis for decision-making in the following stages of the design process.

Design, prototyping and evaluation

In the design phase, it is established how the web page will be designed or redesigned according to two aspects:

The information collected in the planning phase.
The possible usability and accessibility problems discovered in the prototyping and evaluation phases.

User modelling. “Archetypes” of users capable of representing behaviour patterns, needs, and objectives are created, with the aim that the designer knows for whom he will design and what to expect from the user.

- Conceptual design. The navigation and organization system of the website is specified, that is, the connections between each page.

- Visual design. The visual aspect of each of the site’s pages is developed, where aspects such as color, contrasts or any multimedia element are taken into account.

- Content design. The aspect of the hypertext is worked on, always trying to achieve coherent, attractive and communicative content. To achieve this, the DCU applies practices like:
  - - For each paragraph, one idea (avoiding empty ideas that lead to nothing).
  - - Always use vocabulary that the user understands.
  - - Be concise and precise with the information presented.
  - - Use a familiar and close tone.

After having the design ready, it is prototyped to evaluate the usability of the website. In other words, the prototyping phase is where test models of the site’s interface are created, which can be evaluated.

On the other hand, evaluation is the second most important part of user-centred web design and can be performed by methods such as:

- Heuristic evaluation. The inspection and evaluation is done by a usability expert, who points out any errors or existing design problems.

- Testing with users. It observes and analyses how a small group of users uses the website, in order to check if there are usability issues.

Implementation and release

Finally, the design is approved thanks to the user and the final touches of work begin.

At this stage, it is important to carry out a quality control to monitor and certify that everything goes and works as planned. Once verified, the website is launched to the market.

It should be noted that the stages of design, prototyping and evaluation are cyclical and, for this reason, every little detail will always have to be evaluated. It is better to detect small usability errors than to have to redesign for not having carried out the relevant evaluations.

And you? Do you want to create a web page that manages to provide the best experience to your users? We can certainly help you achieve this. Contact us at Doowebs if you need development assistance and design of your website.