Interface Design and Usability

A lecture and demonstration for JOMC 50

Interface design and usability research measures the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a website.

Web designers put a lot of money and time into the creation and management of a website and its interface. Interface is the design and layout of a page, including the functions such as search, navigation and shopping carts. From your experience, you know that an interface can be simple or complex, colorful or bland, and intuitive or confusing.

For good reason, many designers - and their employers and investors - want to know if their website design is an effective one.

Why is this important?
To be effective means something "works well."

If you build a website, you want people to come to the site - and to enjoy their visit to the site. You want them to come back often. If you're site sucks, people won't spend much time looking at your pages, and they won't return. When visitors won't return to your site, your hard work goes down the drain.

For example, if you're site is for e-commerce, a poorly designed site won't make much money: if customers can't find the product, they can't buy it.

See the Daily Sucker at www.webpagesthatsuck.com
This site rips on a site each day.

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