1st Edition
Designing for User Engagement on the Web 10 Basic Principles
The Principles
Principle 1: Design for Diverse Users
Principle 2: Design for Usability
Principle 3: Test the Backbone
Principle 4: Extend a Welcome
Principle 5: Set the Context
Principle 6: Make a Connection
Principle 7: Share Control
Principle 8: Support Interactions among Users
Principle 9: Create a Sense of Place
Principle 10: Plan to Continue the Engagement
The Case Studies
Case Study 1: Information Gallery for Young People
Case Study 2: Wikis for Collaboration
Case Study 3: Cultural Websites
Case Study 4: Usability in Distance Education
Case Study 5: An Interactive Image
Appendices
Appendix 1: Heuristic Evaluation
Appendix 2: Comparative User Testing
Appendix 3: Formal Testing
Biography
Cheryl Geisler is Professor of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University where she is the inaugural Dean of the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology.
Designing for User Engagement on the Web has arrived at a pivotal moment in the field of communication design and technical communication in particular, when the proliferation and popularization of user-generated content threatens to marginalize the role of the professional designer/writer. The authors convincingly argue and effectively demonstrate that this professional obsolescence is far from inevitable. The book envisions new roles for writers/designers that build on traditional strengths in user and task analysis, design, and usability testing, but that must now adapt to the uncertainty of tasks, users, contexts, and motivations that attends massively-collaborative user input. The ten principles outlined suggest how we build on our strengths, both analytically and formatively, by accommodating user engagement. Instead of framing the work of writers and designers in a traditional way, as packagers of usable content, the authors use their principles to recast that work as the facilitation of usable content. The principles are sensible, well argued, and compellingly grounded in projects whose usefulness will be immediately apparent. This book will be essential reading for programs that train writers and designers with relevance in the 21st century.
-- Jason Swarts, North Carolina State University
