Web-centric UX design

UX web design is a methodology applicable to any medium.

But the web is not just any medium.

It is not possible to create effective websites without a sympathetic understanding of what makes virtual mediums so different from physical mediums.

Unlike physical products virtual products are the appearance and functioning of virtual products are mediated by both the application and devices they are viewed on and can also be modified according to user preferences.

Some factors that make websites usable are embedded in the code. Beware of UX design consultancies who 'brag' that they don't bother with coding.

El Nino Media is a specialist web design UX consultancy, and we additionally include within our methodology factors that are particular to the web. By incorporating search engine optimisation (SEO), web content and copy, and accessibility and usability standards we believe we can produce better websites.

El Nino Media is a web-centric agency.

UX design and SEO

SEO is a set of techniques for getting websites to rank highly in search engines for targeted search queries, but it's also crucial to UX design, it fulfilling a common user need, sometimes called 'find-ability'.

If a website isn't reaching its target audience via search engines, it isn't user focused (and it probably isn't used at all).

UX design and accessibility

Accessible web design means designing sites that can be used by blind and other disabled users, and has the virtue of not only helping business reach all potential customers, but also of being of great benefit to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Also by virtue of the fact that accessible websites require careful and thoughtful coding, and meaningful (semantic) structure, accessible websites are usually, well… more elegant.

UX design and the word on the screen

Web content is an often overlooked, but words are often the page element that users interact with more than any other.

From the labelling of navigation elements to the proper use of headings and lists, forget the electronically rendered word at your UX peril.

And words on the screen are treated differently by users that words in print.

UX web design and usability

Physical products and tools generally allow the user only one way to complete a given task. A saw doesn't work upside down.

Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) by contrast generally provide three ways to complete a task. Programs on personal computers will usually allow access to any function through a main menu, a context menu (right-click menus), and via a keyboard shortcut. An I-Phone works upside down.

Like user centred design, usability as a discipline and practise has its roots in the design of physical objects.

In UX web design we understand that users can start wherever they like, they don't necessarily arrive at your homepage, and that we need to orientate them immediately, because there many other websites they could visit, and the web is an impatient medium.

In UX web design we understand that the user has their preferred way of doing things, and we have to provide options that suit different users.