{"id":496,"date":"2010-10-25T11:03:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T19:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/?p=496"},"modified":"2010-10-25T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T19:03:31","slug":"the-importance-of-user-interface-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/the-importance-of-user-interface-design\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of User Interface Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>User Interface Design, or <acronym title=\"User Interface Design\">UID<\/acronym>, is the programming term that describes the way a website is designed to make it easy for its visitors to use.\u00a0 The importance of User Interface Design is that you want to create a website that is easy to navigate, efficient to use, and gives your visitors a pleasurable experience.\u00a0 It should also be as free from errors as possible.\u00a0 This is how you can more easily guarantee that they will continue to not only visit your site on a regular basis, but recommend it to others as well.\u00a0 There are many facets to User Interface Design.\u00a0 They include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>design of input\/output devices<\/li>\n<li>design of workstation environment<\/li>\n<li>the users and their characteristics<\/li>\n<li>tasks to be supported<\/li>\n<li>context of use<\/li>\n<li>information layout and meaning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Chances are, you will have very little control over the first two items.\u00a0 However, you can ensure that the final four are taken into account when you design or update your website.\u00a0 So lets look at a couple of these\u00a0 in more detail.<\/p>\n<h3>Users and Their Characteristics.<\/h3>\n<p>Their are several things to think about here.\u00a0 For instance, what is the cognitive ability of your users?\u00a0 This is usually determined through age, education, and level of experience, so you really want to think about that.\u00a0 You also want to think about the culture or variety of cultures your users are coming from and how that might effect the way they utilize your website.\u00a0 Also, you must take in to account any physical impairments that your users might have and design your site with them in mind.<\/p>\n<h3>Information Layout and Meaning<\/h3>\n<p>This is of extreme importance to your users.\u00a0 They want a page\/website that they can easily read, scan through, and find exactly what they are looking for as quickly as possible.\u00a0 Most users spend mere seconds on web pages.\u00a0 If you want to move them to a particular page or area of your website, it better stand out from everything else.\u00a0 So making sure everything is clear and clean in design is extremely important.\u00a0 Only include the most relevant information to a user on each of your pages and avoid cluttering up with information they will never utilize.\u00a0 A bored and confused user is one that will not return anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>So, that is the basic concept of User Interface Design.\u00a0 In the coming weeks I will get more detailed about how to make your site more readable, how to test and ensure that your site is usable, and how <acronym title=\"User Interface Design\">UID<\/acronym> ties in with search engine optimization.\u00a0 In the meantime, go to your website and look at it with &#8220;fresh eyes&#8221;\u00a0 Imagine you were a first-time user to your site and see if it is one you would return to and recommend to others.\u00a0 Finding the potential problems is always the first step to improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>User Interface Design, or UID, is the programming term that describes the way a website is designed to make it easy for its visitors to use.\u00a0 The importance of User Interface Design is that you want to create a website that is easy to navigate, efficient to use, and gives your visitors a pleasurable experience.\u00a0&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[212,639,211],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usability","tag-uid","tag-usability","tag-user-interface-design"],"modified_by":"Jeff Lew","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}