ncobb13’s blog

Want more? Yeah me neither. I kid of course, Principles of Web Design tells us about many important things to know about designing for the user.

Number 3 is especially important because that's what we're talking about consistency. In it says that a more successful design in consistency is when tools behave how the user expects them to behave. If you release an apple on Sir Isaac Newton it should fall. When it instead flies a mile away, then we should rexamine some things.

God I wish I hadn't missed last week, but the point of this post is simple: who are my users? I've been commenting people lately trying to challenge them to go above the agreeing and patting on the back.

I'm most likely going to be targeting a younger audience but older than the myspace typical age which is pre-teens to around mid 20's. Sure myspace goes beyond that, but that's the user that goes on there most often.

My site will hopefully attract a bit older 20's to 30's, hopefully even into the teens. Those are going to be my darlings or the ones that will be most loyal to my cause and most specifically targeted. After this would be 40's to 50's as a secondary audience, beyond that I don't see any interest.

Specifically: Male and Female, Age 15-35.

As for my idea to build a website on i'm not quite sure yet. I'll probably go for a How-to information website such as HTML for beginners or something more interesting such as Video Game information covering the latest news and information.

The context of persona would still be the same age group as those are the ages that generally use HTML and play games on a more regular basis.

Ok so now you're a fancy pants web designer working for a big hot shot fortune 500 company. Kudos. They tell you to build a website. Not only do you have to keep your client happy, but you also need to keep the people happy.

This is where knowing who you're designing for comes in handy. A website for a senior citizen will most likely be dramatically different than a website for a younger audience like Myspace for instance compared to AARP.

So now we have to do a little demographic research. Who's using your website, what are they trying to accomplish? Even if you're trying to design for a lot of people you need to find a target audience and focus in on what they need.

I think they said it best from this article Analyze Your Audience:

"People on the internet are seeking information and if you can tell them what they want to know they will respond to your website in a favorable way."

This post is late as hell, but I digress. My proposed idea in user-centered design is to go for consistency. Consistency touches on many aspects of a website. You can read about some here in this article.

Web-style Guide: User Centered Design

I really think it's summarized best when it says: "The goal is to be consistent and predictable; your users should feel comfortable exploring your site and confident that they can find what they need."

 Exactly what I was thinking chuck. However, what defines consistency and this comfortable experience? Same graphic schemes, hierarchy, page layout, all these constitute a consistent  design. 

The rest of the article touches upon things we've gone over in IA before such as no dead end pages, staying away from abstract metaphors in graphics and layouts, blah blah blah. I need sleep.