Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people

Home > Articles > Design > Voices That Matter

Why Research-Directed Website Design Will Make Your Website Better

Sarah Horton, author of Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers, presents a case for using design research to reach informed design decisions. It's not enough to rely on your own opinions or those of your clients; she posits that instead, decisions must be based on an understanding of real user needs.
Like this article? We recommend

For all the glitz and glamour attached to the word, when you come right down to it, design is simply the process of making decisions. Which means that we're all designers, constantly engaged in the process of design. We "design" our days, our meals, our surroundings, our schedules. The quality of our design decisions directly affects the quality of our lives. Last-minute, unconsidered decisions can result in less-than-optimal experiences—like a hectic, unproductive day ending with a dinner of ramen noodles.

We also make design decisions that affect other people. Since you're reading this article in Peachpit.com's "Web Design & Development" section, I assume that you make decisions about websites—how they look, how they work, their features and content—and your decisions therefore affect the experience of your users.

Making Design Decisions

There are many ways to arrive at decisions. We can model our decisions after other people whom we admire; for example, current fashion often guides our clothing choices. Depending on your point of view, you can call this "copying" or "standing on the shoulders of giants," and it's common practice for websites as well as for clothing, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Current trends drive design decisions, as evidenced by the similar design approach used on the websites of many apparel manufacturers. When the designs (and the clothing) are so similar, the visitor can easily lose track of which site he or she is visiting.

Both modeling and learning from experts (such as our Peachpit authors) are effective strategies for making design decisions, especially for people who are just starting out. We often begin something new by modeling and following instructions, before we branch out and try different approaches. Learning and transfer—it's how we learn, and how we move from novice to expert.

But another powerful source of knowledge is research—the process of exploration, observation, testing, evaluation, and refinement. When we start our design process with user research, and we let what we learn through research direct our decision-making, we make better designs that are informed rather than modeled, intuited, or based on our preferences or those of our clients.

Are We Driven or Directed?

Are We Driven or Directed?

You may have noticed in the title of this article ("Research-Directed Website Design") that I use the term directed rather than driven. It's a subtle difference, but an important one, and here's why.

One of the main criticisms of user research is that users don't always know their goals and how those goals can best be met. Think of the famous Henry Ford quote: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Research-driven design states the case too strongly. It implies that user research is what drives design decisions: user goals, behaviors, preferences. Were this the case, the end result could easily be something that no one likes or is able to use.

Consider higher education, where I work. More user goals show up at our virtual "front door" than can be addressed on a single website. Just a few examples:

  • Current students want to check dining menus. Goal: Eat.
  • Prospective students want to learn about student life. Goal: Select the right college.
  • Media want to find a story with legs. Goal: Feed the media beast.
  • Parents of current students want to know how the college is responding to H1N1. Goal: Keep their children healthy.

The list of important and necessary goals goes on and on. However, designing a college website to address every goal of every visitor would result in a sprawling morass of web pages that no one can navigate. As it is, college websites are complex and difficult when compared with sites that have a more targeted purpose, such as travel and retail sites, which can therefore cater to specific goals (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Hotwire's design is easy to use, in large part because of its focus on one user goal: Finding cheap travel. Visitors to Stanford's website have much more diverse goals, and the design manages to address many of the more common ones without overwhelming the user.

At some point in the design process, the designer takes the front seat, transforming research results into actionable design decisions. This is the point at which Henry Ford takes direction from requests for a faster horse: Using his invention, knowledge, and expertise, and within the context of his situation and business goals, he designs a solution that addresses the goal of getting people from here to there more quickly. This is why I use the term research-directed. If Ford had been "driven" by research, we may never have had the opportunity to drive!

Is It Worth the Effort?

Is It Worth the Effort?

Some time ago I stumbled on an article called "The Loyalty Elephant," by Steve Hoisington and Earl Naumann. [1] Initially I was charmed by the article's title, and as I read I was encouraged by its message. This article gave me a very persuasive way to discuss the importance and potential of usability.

The topic of the article is customer satisfaction, and one of its main arguments is that a positive experience leads to satisfaction, which leads to loyalty behaviors, such as repeat purchases. In the web context, we might think of loyalty behaviors such as sales conversions or repeat visits. The article concludes with this caution:

It is important to remember that customers, like elephants, have very good memories. Customers do not quickly forget good or bad experiences with organizations and will usually demonstrate their satisfaction levels with their subsequent expenditures.

In effect, usability has the potential to make or break an enterprise. As an advocate of user-centered design, it's not always easy to convince clients to focus on user experience for the sake of engendering satisfaction and feelings of well-being. However, invoking the bottom line can help to make the case.

In the end, usable designs are more enjoyable, and generate feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction for those who use them. We all regularly engage with designed artifacts; those we love, we love, and those we hate, we hate. When it comes to defining the quality of our experience, the onus is on the designer. As Henry Dreyfuss points out in his book Designing for People: [2]

We bear in mind that the object being worked on is going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some other way used by people individually or en masse.

When the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the […] designer has failed.

On the other hand, if people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient—or just plain happier—by contact with the product, then the designer has succeeded.

Usable designs cannot be divined, or derived from our own experiences. Website design discussions often revolve around the preferences of the people in the room—a group that usually isn't representative of the target audience. Design decisions that arise out of this type of internal discussion are unlikely to lead to websites that satisfy users and inspire those nice loyalty behaviors. As designers, we need to look outward, to the goals, preferences, and behaviors of our target users, in order to create sites that make them—and thereby us—successful.

Convinced? Techniques to Come

Convinced? Techniques to Come

In this article, I've made a case for applying design research to website design, as a way of making informed design decisions. I hope that I've convinced you to include research in your website design process. In a follow-up article, I'll describe research methods used in the site-definition process, and how they lay the foundation for the project charter—the cornerstone of a successful website development project.

References

References

[1] Henry Dreyfuss' Designing for People (Allworth Press, 2003) was first published in 1955 by Simon and Schuster. Check your library or Amazon.com for this book.

[2] Steve Hoisington and Earl Naumann's article "The Loyalty Elephant" was published in the February 2003 issue of Quality Progress. You can read the article with free registration on the American Society for Quality website.

Further Reading

Further Reading

Already convinced? If you're ready to start using research techniques right now, these excellent texts can help you to get started:

Peachpit Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Peachpit and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about Peachpit products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites; develop new products and services; conduct educational research; and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email ask@peachpit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by Adobe Press. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.peachpit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020