User-Centric Design
The advancement of technology is vital and has always shown great impact on human aspect of life. Web applications are software programs built to runs on the server and are easily accessed by the client via a domain name mapped to hosting environment where website files are hosted. Web application development involves a complex process aimed at improving the quality of business by automation of many processes and hence improving business performance because scalability of web applications is vast.
Unlike in the past old days, all new web applications developed follows a user centric design where users are required to understand the flow and usage of the application by interacting with user interface. This therefore, creates the need of having well rated and qualified online presence. The main purpose of the project is to design and develop a website for a startup to improve sales as this website is used for marketing. To achieve this, it is important to understand the initial requirements as well as understand how users will interact with the developed websites. It is therefore important to handle design thinking to ensure smooth and elegant user interfaces that users will find friendly.
Following the advancement of technology, human computer interaction has emerged to be a field of specialization. Design thinking (DT) will therefore play an important role in closing the gap between new technologies and user experiences in the use of computer systems despite their technologies. DT ideas will play a great role at improving user interfaces design that will be implemented by software designers. DT defines all issues from requirement analysis (park &McKilligan, 2018). Over the years Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has evolved in a great depth aimed at improving user experiences and remove or bad and non-usable user designed software products. It is therefore key to come up with a design that is user friendly covering usability factors of the system. User interface must be simple for both native and expert users. (Ugras,2016).
By the fact that technology is applied and used in different contexts, Background study is performed at the actual field where interaction with specific users of an end product is important. Requirements gathering are done in a number of ways which includes interviewing, Observation and analysis of user stories. During field work a team was organized which had to come up with goals that includes identification of user preferences in terms of user interfaces design. It is from this that infirmity design diagrams are draw. By becoming more obstructive it was possible to gather information from user based on their interests and observations. We handled all user range factors and took a number of picture to ensure that environmental context is capture during design phase.
The methods used in this Design Process (DP) begins by identification of problem to be solved whereby time is taken to understand and identify resources and conduct research which in turn helps at getting prepared for the task. Brain storming follows where goals are written down in paper format. Coming up with different designs is important as it provides different opinions that are applicable and hence choosing the best design from the rest. A model such as a sketch can be designed tested and evaluated to make any necessary changes. A sample sketch include the below figure.
The Role of Design Thinking in Web Application Development
Background: Include a timeline of the development of the field of HCI and an outline of the main UX design principles as they developed, to consider the present expectations.
A timeline is well set to ensure HCI project is closed by the set time. A number of design principles were considered in this phase. Discoverability entailed placing of user interfaces function in the simplest form possible such that the user requires little or no training about them, navigation component was include to facilitate this functionality. Simplicity, every design should be simple to understand and use. In carrying out the design process, it was ensured that user interface was not clustering and therefore simple and elegant design. Mapping of the user interface were done such us inclusivity of natural features to enhance System Oriented Language. Consistency is a key factor that was included among all pages to ensure that users need not to learn again after navigating from one page to another. Equity was also considered to ensure all learned and those with little knowledge of computers are able to use as well. By designing a responsive interface it means that comfort as a design principle was achieved. To add on comfortability of the system, users can use any device that have internet to access services offered by the website. In terms of feedback, users can contact the organization via a contact form that was design at the mean stages of design.
Interviews as a way of obtaining user experiences can be used regardless of them being structured, un-structured or semi-structured. To handle interviewing a series of interview questions are well prepared to ensure that rich content is obtained from the user. Methods such as observation will be required to ensure that important requirements are stressed. Get people wanted to interview and take all responses including recording that will aid at requirement analysis.
Methods (Quiz2): Discuss ethnographical methods for design
Ethnography is a comprehensive method that is concerned with detailed observation of people in a natural setting. Ethnographical methods of design is aimed at understanding the future of users of design and this helps at design and development of software products entails scalability as a factor of production which means that the system can accommodate future changes with minimal alteration of the current user interface. Participant observation, Interviews and Surveys are the major ethnographical methods for design.
Observation (PD2): Describe the process used in your first observation for doing a design. Consider the s******s you would need to do this work and the techniques you might employ in the future.
Context tells us to get as close as possible to the ideal situation of being physically present. Staying in context enables us to gather ongoing experience rather than summary experience, and concrete data rather than abstract data. Based on the user observation it was therefore important to understand how to interact with respective clients and during this observation, a series of questions were prepared aimed at getting maximum user requirements as possible. During the process of interviewing and observation of the clients, stresses were noted. Capturing user would require improvements and this means that better data collection tools and methods are used. In this case, it would be important to consider getting requirements from different related users and coming up with a solid design considerations.
Based on the provided user design interface, a number of factors were considered to come up with the conclusion of the same method, which includes usability, flexibility, usability and scalability which takes care of user interaction design. Based on the initial requirements of the project, user required simple and easy to use system that will cover all their needs ensuring usability and ease of understanding is considered. By the fact that the design covers Consistency among other design principle.
At each step, the interviewer listened for steps that probably happened but the customer skipped and then backed the customer up to find out. In this process, the customer walked through the steps in her mind, using any available artifacts to stimulate memory, and recalled more about the actual work than she would if allowed to simply tell the story in order. Using retrospective accounts, the interviewer can recover past events and can also learn more about events in progress. To improve on this process, Designers may not be experts in doing the work, but they must develop expertise in seeing work structure, in seeing patterns and distinctions in the way people organize work. An interviewer has to create something that looks more like a partnership than like an ordinary apprenticeship.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Website design and development plays an important role in creating the reputation of an organization. Marketing and branding the name of the organization is important and can improve sales and revenue, enhance business identity by the fact that website can reach many audience and hence reaching to more clients. Project planning is crucial as it contains the deliverables of the projects and without this project delivery may be delayed. Web site design plays an important role as it offers the user ability to conceptualize the outlook of the final product. From design the website can be slow or fast in terms of response time and therefore it is important to make sure that the website is developed by the use of latest technologies and best guidelines. It is recommended to use content delivery for website resources as this will in turn improve the performance of the website. Light weight libraries can also be used to create animations on the website and making the website responsive improving the customer experience. Human Computer interaction is a key feature in software development and should be considered as a priority for all scalable software products. To improve on future design it is important to come up with better ethnographical methods together with better analysis methods that will be backed up involvement of user in all phases of software development.
References
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- Ormerod, T. C., Mariani, J., Morley, N. J., Rodden, T., Crabtree, A., Mathrick, J., Hitch, G., & Lewis, K. (2005). Mixing Research Methods in HCI: Ethnography Meets Experimentation in Image Browser Design. Engineering Human Computer Interaction and Interactive Systems, 112–128.
- Park, H., & McKilligan, S. (2018). A Systematic Literature Review for Human-Computer Interaction and Design Thinking Process Integration. Design, User Experience, and Usability: Theory and Practice, 725–740.
- Rajaraman, V., Nallaswamy, D., Ganapathy, D. M., & Ashok, V. (2021). An Innovative Meta-Systematic Review into the Landscape of Literature and the Concluding Evidence on the Quality of Life of Patients Using Two Implant Supported Mandibular Complete Denture Prosthesis. Journal of Advanced Oral Research, 12(1), 7–23.
- Shibuya, Y., Hamm, A., & Cerratto Pargman, T. (2022). Mapping HCI research methods for studying social media interaction: A systematic literature review. Computers in Human Behavior, 129, 107131.
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