A small discussion on user research & testing

UX/UC design is User Centric design which places the user at the centre of the design. So it is important to not only identify who your target audience will be, but also what needs or requirements they would want to get out of your website. 

Some websites show poor use of usability research with the most common problems being inconsistency, poor page layout, mystery navigation and ambiguous titles. 

With the ‘what’ subheading we are looking at what is user research. This involves aspects such as market research, polling, personas and focus groups. The presentation then explains how user research is implemented. This involves things such as analytics, card sorting, prototypes/wireframes and finally usability testing. Usability testing is highly important because it allows designers and information architects to discover how users perceive and understand the site before it has gone live. This allows for any additional changes or suggestions from the users themselves. 

This presentation to the Billy Blue School of Design is important, as the importance of usability testing needs to be shown to anyone wanting to pursue a career in the web design industry. The users are the people we are designing the website for, so it needs to suit their needs and requirements over anything else.