What is a site-focused user experience?

The User Experience or UX Its abbreviation in English (User Experience) is an important concept in digital marketing. Advertising campaigns, social media content and websites should be Make the user the center of the strategy. To understand how to apply it, The Economist He interviewed Tere Mendiola, an experienced UX consultant in web design, both in Mexico and the United States, and is based in Boston. Graphic Designer by profession, along with a multidisciplinary team, they create websites, applications and systems from the user’s point of view.

– Please explain to us what is user experience and where does it apply?

-The User Experience It is the interaction between a person and a system or products. It can be applied to websites, apps, and other technologies; From ATM, washing machine, etc. Therefore, the role of web designers is not only limited to user experience, there are also engineers, researchers, and writers who focus on user experience. All of these professionals should know who is targeting the product or system in order to talk to them in the same language.

What elements should a good website have according to user experience?

– First, it performs the function for which it was created and serves the user. Second, what Be easy to use. And in the end, we take aesthetics into account.

On the other hand, the elements of each site will differ if it is informational, has an e-commerce or blog. The following characteristics apply to all cases:

The The user should always know where they are. It can’t be that this person doesn’t know what the site is about and doesn’t know what section it’s in. For example: If someone is looking for a dental clinic address, when they enter the dentist website, they need to locate it quickly. The user should easily find what he is looking for, such as a restaurant menu. Unless he has time, he will stop to read the Who Are We? section.

This is why UX focused on websites is managed by it User cases. You have to think about how each person will use the site. Going back to the case of the dentist, the case may be a person who wants to know the address of the office, another who wants to make an appointment and another, what services he provides. These are three user cases, based on which you start planning the navigation (in a website) and know where to put everything and give hierarchies.

For you as a designer, it is important to think about what people will be looking for most and is given more importance. The design should be in line with the different situations in which the site can be used. It goes hand in hand with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you have to know at least a little about it and in the development team there should be interaction with someone who knows SEO.

—What is the dream team of, the ideal team of professionals to develop the best website on the Internet?

1. Designer focused on user experience who will do the mockup (the visible part)
2. Search engine optimization person
3. The user experience researcher, who will contact the users, conduct the interviews to find out how the site works, conduct tests etc. You will work from planning to working
4. programmer or developer
5. Content writer focus on UX or SEO

And in some cases, someone focused on accessibility; For example for people who don’t see and use page reader. This blind user must also know what the site is about.

There are companies where the UX team consists of 70 people.

What is the trend in web design today? Will we see any changes in the next few years?

—Sites need to be 100% responsive (adapt to different screen sizes) because we browse the internet through many devices. The focus is also on getting straight to the point. If there is a lot of irrelevant text, people will not read it. Years ago, it was common for websites to have sections for a company’s mission, vision, and goals, and that’s way too late. Perhaps this information is of interest to the entrepreneur, but not to the person who visits your site.

Regarding the length Text on every pageOrder and balance are important. Think of all kinds of audience or target that will come to the site and you should talk to all of them. There is a term we use a lot in UX design: Buyer character It is the representation of your different groups, from the group that has a lot of experience to the group that is just learning to navigate the site.

– Based on your experience, what differences do you see between web development in Mexico, compared to the US?

– It depends on the level of technological maturity of each company, in both countries there are companies that know nothing about UX and are just getting started. There are also companies that already know the topic and are trying to implement it.

The Nielsen Norman Collection It has a widely accepted testimonial on UX maturity levels where it refers, among other things, to the Ten Commandments of Usability for Websites. It also defines the six levels of company maturity in terms of user experience and technology.

The UX design goal It is that the user does not leave, feel frustrated or not fulfill the purpose for which the site was created. All people who visit the page should understand how to navigate it.

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