Design 401 - An Expert's Look At Web Design Principles

1. What factors do designers consider when working to create an effective website?

Audience
Message
Usability
Approachability
Content
Application

2. What makes the difference between good and bad design?

Mystery meat navigation or concise, easy to use navigation
Contrast of the website
Clashing color scheme which can confuse or frustrate users
Unclear message (bad copy)
Bad degradation. How websites perform with different devices and browser abilities. Backwards compatibility and no Flash, no Java, no CSS degradation.
Cross browser rendering and browser usage statistics

3. Testing designs against each other

What is A/B split testing?
What design decisions can you test?
How can you track your results?
How are your users are responding to your design?
User testing

4. Tools

Crazy Egg
Click Tail
Click Density

5. Wrap Up / Summary

Check list / action sheet: Actionable items which you can use to vastly improve the sales performance of your website