Digital Customer Experience Agency
“User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website’s content and functionality.” – Jason Hobbs
User journeys are basically an approach that allows the planning and visualisation of the user’s path to reaching their end objective. When creating user journeys, you have to start thinking more about the user’s needs and the way they go about meeting their needs. In order to do this, you need a successful user research stage, where you identify who the users are…
I recently had the opportunity go to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to start a new project for one of the biggest Saudi Arabian IT companies. The project’s aim was to consolidate all their services into a singular portal with a single entry point and have a hub for all the purchased services.
It was a great opportunity as I was able to experience a different culture and working environment. It inspired me to document it all in another “Dear Diary” post like I did for “just-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-ux-architect.”
So here goes….
On first impressions of Windows 8 I was impressed. From the adverts and first look at the interface, I thought yes – Microsoft have broken the mold and come out with a fresh, modern design. And more than just design, user-centred design. On second look though, and further looking, I am disappointed.
A website I visited recently really made me think about what we mean by user experience. I’m so used to seeing variations of similar navigation tools and page layouts – such as mega-navs, heroes, side menus etc – attempting to give the user the best experience and an easy journey through the site. This isn’t a negative point; this is familiar to the user and works if done well. Each design decision affects the user journey and ultimately user experience - and content and layout affects this positively or negatively.
This particular website though, for The Orange Tree Group (www.orangetree.co.uk) does things differently. There are no navigation menu bars and little descriptive content on the homepage. But, I did not find the site difficult to navigate. In fact, from the outset I was engaged and intrigued – I wanted to explore. How did I find this manageable with such little text content and direction?
A snapshot of the homepage
At its peak in 2006/2007, Myspace was the most dominate social networking site. It had reached 100million accounts and was valued at 12 billion dollars! Five years on, myspace is now owned by Specific Media & Justin Timberlake, and recently released a teaser to showcase it’s revamped site.
The hero is the most prominent area on a web page, which is usually the area at the top of a web page. All eyes are always fixed on it. There has been a lot of user research conducted, which shows that the top area of the page gains most of the user’s attention. As users go further down the page, their attention gets less & less. Due to this approach, websites place a lot more emphasis on getting the most out of the hero space.
This blog post details a number of different approaches that users can take to make the most of your hero space.
This summer saw a full programme of the Zabisco graduate designer placement scheme. The aim of this scheme is to bring in both recent graduates as those on the summer break from their current degree into our design studio, give them great front line exposure to what life is like in a working commercial design studio.
How well does your website meet the users’ requirements? Here is a list of questions that help you to evaluate your website and enhance usability.
We’re always thrilled when a new project goes live, and more so when its a brand we have been fully engaged with from day one. This is very much the case with B3 Cricket, a brand new bespoke cricket bat manufacturer.
B3 are a brand new unique player in the cricket bat market, offering the highest quality bespoke cricket bats, supplying the discerning cricketer who expects the best in performance, service and value for money.
We were approached by the team at B3 when all they had was the name ‘B3′, no visual brand identity, logo or look and feel. Our remit was to create a modern cricket brand, including B3 logo and all bat decals, then translate this into an online e-commerce experience that will function at the heart of the B3 bespoke bat ordering process.
In this blog I’ll take you through the design process of creating the visual identity of B3, naming of the bats, bat decals and then transferring this into a fully on-brand e-commerce site and all the great functionality built within this.
Leading by example
Considering this was New!’s first self-negotiated rebranding project, they’ve set the bar really high. Higher than a pole vault bar.
Devoting two months to an experimental brief as a showcase of their design skills warrants a lot of credit, especially with such a successful outcome that is giving them this great exposure they deserve (probably the thousandth blog on The Wikipedia Redefined this week). Read the rest of this entry »
This is a visual blog of the design stages I went through while producing the Zabisco logo entry section of our latest motion graphic that’s all about responsive web design (RWD).
