Wednesday, March 22, 2006

CIL - Basics of Web-Based experience planning

David King presented a well organized outline of "how-to" design a web site that made me want to go back home and get started! He used concepts from Jesse James Garrett to outline the process. The 5 steps are: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, surface. He emphasized that you have to remember at every stage that the user of the site is the most important element. Users should have a feeling of control and interactivity in all parts of the site. We need to keep the focus on the user rather than on the resources we have to offer to the user.

At the end of the presentation someone asked about the cluttered (to her) look of many award winning websites. David pointed out that what looks cluttered to us does not necessarily look cluttered to our users - - if these are people who regularly use CNN or Amazon or Yahoo they probably have come to like what we consider cluttered.

The bottom line is: It's all about the user!! And it's hard for us to remember.

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