User Experience (IA/UX)
One of the most important steps to building a successful experience begins by understanding the mental model for each user. The closer that a solution’s information architecture is to your users’ mental models, the easier it is for users to find content and accomplish their tasks.
The solution must be designed to work across all devices – an adaptive site (mobile, tablet and desktop) is included in this proposal supporting 320px, 480px, 760px, 960px, 1366px, 1400px+ screen sizes.
The ability to render properly across different devices is not a single technology, but a set of techniques that allow web pages to serve the needs of both mobile and desktop users. The most important thing about responsive design is flexibility. Everything must be flexible: layouts, image sizes, text blocks – flexibility gives your site the fluidity it needs to fit inside any container.
Sitemap (Navigational Model)
A website’s navigational model is a collection of user interface components. The primary goal of navigation is to help users find information and functionality, and encourage them to take desirable actions. Navigation components include global navigation, local navigation, utility navigation, facets and footers.
Taxonomies and Content Object Model
A website taxonomy is a system of classification that enables a website to be categorized according to topics. This includes a definition of a standardized naming convention (controlled vocabulary) to apply to all site content.
A content object model is about creating relationships between content types. This model will insure content can be presented properly to the site as relationships may exist between authors and articles and thus easily displayed on the presentation layer.
Wireframes
Wireframing is a low-cost, rapid iterative design technique that offers one of the best methods for gaining design insights early. Catching major problems means our clients won’t waste precious time, effort and money developing designs that may fail.
We create wireframes in a collaborative online sharing platform called UXPin. Like all our tools, it allows our team to create and share to gain efficiencies in project cohesion and also it has the capability to enable behaviors in a document like drop down menus, form fields and more to deliver prototype-like documents.
User Testing
Compelling user experiences must be useful, usable and desirable. Can users achieve their goals? Does the experience engender positive emotions? We recommend three user testing scenarios for this project at key milestones in the project. They are as follows.
Like/Dis-like Test – Consensus will use this test to see what people like and dislike about key areas of the experience. To avoid priming, the ‘dislike’ question is reframed as a less harsh sounding task, for example: “What would you improve about this page?”. This gives higher quality feedback.
Beta Live Surveys (using market leader Usabilla) – Users can select and rate any item on the web page. Users provide feedback while browsing the site in their own pace and with their own goals in mind.
Services Include
• Usability testing
• W3C compatibility testing
• Browser compatibility
Consensus Website Review?
Consensus’ Web Site Review is an expert review — also known as a heuristic evaluation or scenario review. To conduct a Web Site Review, our experts attempt to accomplish relevant user goals and evaluate the experience against 33 research-based criteria to uncover design flaws that prevent users from accomplishing their goals.
It’s intent is to use this study as a platform to discuss what refinements can be made to ensure that the site meets targeted business and user goals.
The activities include:
Value Review – How effectively can user goals can be achieved? Is essential content and functionality present?
Navigation Review – Consistency of labeling, location on the screen and designed to enable users to complete core goals.
Presentation Review – How usable a site is based upon presentation style, relevance of page content and human factors.
Trust Review – Clear privacy and security information, does the site function well in terms of speed and feedback? Does it recover well from error?
Brand Review – Examine how well the site communicates brand attributes through the use of content, function, language, imagery, typography, and layout.