WEB DESIGN AND USABILITY

Web design is the art and process of creating a single Web page or entire Web sites and may involve both the aesthetics and the mechanics of a Web site's operation although primarily it focuses on the look and feel of the Web site - the design elements[Web Design by Jacci Howard Bear - About.com guide]. Web design includes many things such as graphics, colors, navigation, images, layout, navigation, usability, fonts and accessibility. 

Usability is the study of ease of use, of how quickly people can understand to use a designed object and how easily they can use it. "Any system which cannot be well taught to a layman in ten minutes, by a tutor in the presence of a responding setup, is too complicated." -- Ted Nelson (Dream Machines, 1974). This means that we have to create a site that is usable and easily understandable to our users. If our users do not like the site they wont return i.e. bad usability means no users and a good usable site attracts repeated visits. The main goals of usability in designing a web site should be to make it more effective, efficient, safe, usable, learnable and memorable.  

There are many usability issues and design concerns that the designer has to consider when designing a website. The most important of them include setting a proper goal for the website - a specific set of actions it has to perform, finding the user requirements, meeting the user requirements, and providing meaningful information. Designers should make every possible attempt to reduce the load on the users by utilizing the technology and the computer's capabilities. There will be best use of the web sites when users find what they are looking for in a website i.e. information is displayed in a consistent format, and not overloaded also. Another important thing that the designers should remember is accessibility, which is to ensure that everyone, including the users with difficulty in seeing, hearing and making precise movements, can use them. 

Don Norman discusses the three levels at play in a design: Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective.

1. Visceral - This deals about how the things appear initially.  

2. Behavioral - This deals with the look and the feel -- the total experience of using the product. 

3. Reflective - This deals with the after impact i.e. how it makes us feel, what image it portrays and the message it passes others.  

See the following link to know more about the three levels of design and answer the question that follows:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/don_norman_on_design_and_emotion.html

Question:

What do you think is the importance of the three levels of design proposed by Donald Norman, in designing a website?