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Tag: Visual Design

  • Color Basics
    A color wheel is an illustrative model of color hues around a circle.  It shows the relationships between the primary, secondary, and intermediate/ tertiary colors and helps demonstrate...
  • Creating Cross-Channel Experiences
    Ensuring a valuable and consistent user experience across all channels helps build credibility and trust in your brand.
  • Creating a User-Centered Approach in Government
    Government agencies provide vital information and services that affect people’s daily lives. They have the responsibilities of responding to the needs of its citizens, running as...
  • Visual Design
    Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.  A successful visual design does not...
  • User Interface Design
    User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those...
  • User Experience
    User experience (UX) focuses on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations.  It also takes into account the business...
  • One Site Fits All: A Responsive Solution
    Attempting to create and maintain multiple versions of your site to accommodate each device can be time consuming, resource intensive, and unsustainable as a long-term solution. Responsive...
  • Getting the Guidelines Up-to-Date
    Updating the Guidelines is an important part of the reboot of our Usability.gov Program. We are creating the process and want to know how you’d like to see it take shape. 
  • A New Purpose; A New Design: Welcome to the Usability.gov Re-boot
    Usability.gov’s re-boot not only has a pioneering new design; it also reflects our new, expanded purpose. Learn more about how we got here. 
  • Creating Wireframes
    This document provides a description and examples of both Design and Functional wireframes.
  • Parallel Design
    With the parallel design technique, several people create an initial design from the same set of requirements. Each designer works independently and, when finished, shares his or her...
  • Credibility
    Users are becoming more skeptical of the information they find online. Learn about the factors impacting your website's credibility.
  • Eyetracking and Web site Design
    Find out what areas of a page, based on eye tracking, are grabbing a user’s attention and the areas that are being ignored and how a user searches for information.
  • Image Carousels: Getting Control of the Merry-Go-Round
    Find out what researchers are saying and how you can improve the effectiveness of the image carousel on your homepage.
  • Building Trust
    Online trust is important whether you are trying to distribute information or initiating online business transactions.  Find out how to design with trust as a consideration.
  • Color Blindness & Web Design
    Learn about the benefits and challenges of designing color-friendly sites, and which colors work best.
  • The Impact of Aesthetics on Attitudes Towards Websites
    A user's perception of a website can evoke a wide range of emotions and attitudes. These impact the user's attitude towards the site's content, advertised products, company, credibility and...
  • Web Usability and Aging
    Find out what you need to consider when desiging a site used by seniors.
  • Should All Links be Underlined?
    Links are the primary means by which users navigate Web sites. If users do not notice, or do not think that links are clickable, they may not use the links.  Learn about the best practices...
  • Web Site Credibility
    The perception of credibility goes a long way in reassuring users that they've reached a website that provides useful content and that there's substance behind that content.
  • Consider as Many Design Alternatives as Possible: The Value of Parallel Design
    By using the parallel design method you can consider as many design ideas as possible before selecting the best with which to begin the iterative design and testing process.
  • Reading Onscreen: The Effects of Line Length on Performance
    Learn which types of documents users prefer to read online and which they usually "print then read".  When reading online, line length impacts performance.
  • Age-Related Research-Based Usability Guidelines
    There are definite, predictable degenerative effects of aging on a person’s ability to effectively and efficiency interact with Web-based systems.  Learn about the research-based...