Reading Report: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites Citation: Horton, S. and Lynch P. (2012) Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites. http://www.webstyleguide.com/wsg3/index.html. (Chapters 2, 4, 7, 11)

Key words: design process, universal usability, accessibility, user-centred design (UCD), visual design

This book is about (main discussion):
Design principles and how they apply to web design, from planning, to production, to maintenance. Primary topics that I read for this review include visual design, universal usability, and user-centered design. Furthermore, when designing a website, universal usability (improving the quality of life for a larger audience more frequently) is the aim, as this provides effectiveness in accomplishing tasks (such as finding information).

The authors argue that:
Universal Usability
When designing websites it is our job to make them more usable, or reduce functional limitations. The most common method for achieving this is user-centred design (UCD), which looks at the users (through focus groups, task analysis, and user testing) to determine what works best for them. UCD practitioners continuously design, test, and refine in order to achieve the best product. UCD is applied to diverse users, platforms, and contexts. The first step to to achieving universal usability is to not design for a “typical” user; rather, it should be done considering age, experience level, and other limitations (ie. sensory). The authors outline the following guidelines to support adaptation (a design approach used to accommodate users): flexibility, user control, keyboard functionality, and text equivalents). (chapter 2)

The first step in the web design process is to gather information about the users. This can be done through surveys, interviews, focus groups, web analytics, and field studies. The second step is to apply what is learned in stage one, by creating “personas” (which typically include a name, demographics, level of expertise, and platform). Personas should include a wide variety of people within a demographic. When testing what has been designed, paper prototypes are often the best platform as they are inexpensive, and effective for examining page elements. User testing is implemented in a controlled and directed fashion in order to test the prototypes in order to improve its universal usability. As mentioned previously, this process is continuous. (chapter 2).

Visual Design
Holton and Lynch discuss these visual design principles with regard to web page design: proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, figure-ground relationships, uniform connectedness, and 1 + 1 = 3 effects.

The authors make the following statements or sites the following references on support of his/ her argument:
Ben Shneiderman defines universal usability as “having more than 90% of all households as successful users of information and communications services at least once a week.” (chapter 2)

Gestalt psychologists researched into the perception of visual patterns yielded a number of consistent principles that dominate human visual reasoning and pattern recognition, and these principles form the theoretical basis for much of modern graphic design. (chapter 7) The authors conclude that: The concept of universal usability is informed by several initiatives, primarily accessibility, usability, and universal design. Universal design incorporates access requirements into a design, rather than providing alternate designs to meet specific needs. Furthermore, a design that meets broad needs is more effective and less-costly than multiple designs (chapter 2).

The authors feel that:
Through iterative cycles of design, testing, and refinement, user-centered design practitioners continuously check in to make sure they are on track-that users like and will be successful using the design. (chapter 2) This process provides for the widest audience in a variety of contexts and platforms.