Apply ISO-standard user-centered design principles (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction) to deliver websites that drive business outcomes rather than just look good.
Diagnose where users get stuck using Don Norman's interaction model, the four goal-mapping questions, and hierarchical task analysis.
Plan and conduct user observation and interviews to surface what users actually do beyond what they say they do.
Choose the most appropriate usability evaluation method from heuristic reviews, walkthroughs with users, and usability testing with real users.
Plan, run, and analyze usability tests early and often.
Understand the legal accessibility requirements under the ADA, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Disability Discrimination Acts, the European Convention on Human Rights, and equivalent national laws.
Apply the WCAG four principles and design websites that work with assistive technologies to reach a wider audience.
Develop research-grounded personas and persona stories that promote team empathy and sharpen design focus.
Design navigation, hyperlinks, and breadcrumbs that reflect a coherent conceptual model, place primary and secondary menus where users expect them, work on touch devices, and orient users who arrive from search engines on internal pages.
Organize web content around primary persona goals using the inverted pyramid structure, plain words, one key idea per paragraph, balanced prose and bullets, and on-page anchors, so visitors quickly judge whether they are on the right page.
Provide feedback close in timing, location, and meaning to the event it relates to, use validation and error messages as a last resort, preserve user-entered data, and translate technical errors into plain language so users can recover without losing their work.
Account for change blindness so error indicators are actually seen, and design confirmation flows that leave users certain a transaction has succeeded.
Apply the Gestalt principles of perception and grid-based layouts, and honor expected layout conventions, to reduce cognitive load, speed task completion, and lower bounce on first-time visits.
Design forms that respect user time and treat input as valuable.
Use color strategically, never relying on color alone to communicate meaning, choosing combinations that meet WCAG contrast ratios, and adapting to cultural context.
Plan, run, and interpret open and closed card sorts using hierarchical cluster analysis so that navigation labels and form fields match the words users actually search for, reducing support tickets and abandoned carts.
Run paper prototype sessions to test concepts with users at minimal cost before any code is written.
