A crucial, but often under-emphasized stage of building a website or application is designing the user interface — where human meets computer. Usability defines great applications.
In essence, good user interface design focuses on four areas we would analyze and in which we would make recommendations, culminating in an end user exercise. These include:
- Functionality Design - Deciding what functionality to offer in a web site or application can often be the most important design decision.
- Information Architecture - How the information is organized and how the user interacts with it.
- Layout Design - This is the part that most people think of when they hear the phrase "user interface design" or "graphic design.“
- Interaction Design - The interaction design defines how the user will interact with the website or application.
- Usability Testing – We would finalize the UI exercise with usability testing on the end user during prototype iterative development.