User-Centered Design

How Defining Your Users Can Boost Your Web Site Traffic

Determining your target audience is an integral part of any successful web site. But once you've established who you think should visit your web site, how do you know if these are the users who actually visit your web site?

User definition is our process of determining what kinds of audiences will be using a web site or application. Learning who your users are can help you make more informed decisions about meeting their needs. This intimate knowledge of your audience can translate into longer and more frequent visits to your site.

Research indicates that defining your users can help your business in the following ways:

Gathering more accurate user requirements give your system improved quality.
You avoid investing in costly system features that users don't want or can't use.
Your web site or application receives improved levels of acceptance.

That's why user definition is the building block of the TerpSys User-Centered Design Methodology. By defining who the users are for a web site or application and what they want to accomplish from the beginning, we can make solid design and architectural decisions. That way, we can build a better functioning web site or application that meets your users' needs.

Our user definition process consists of four elements: audience definition, business objectives for the user, personas and customer feedback analysis.

Audience definition - We identify who is using your current site or will be using your application, through log analysis, web tracking and desired demographics. We also look at the desired audiences' characteristics.
Business objectives for the user - Through such user-research methods as interviews and user logs, we establish what users coming to a site or using an application want to accomplish (i.e., buying something, making a donation, booking a meeting).
Personas - These are composite personalities. We use them to influence structure and design for a web site or application. We develop them using information from surveys and interviews to determine what users achieve on your current site or application, as well as their needs and wants.
Customer feedback analysis - We talk to your customers and review their emails and comments to help determine the likes and needs of your current customer base.

User definition is the first stage of our TerpSys User-Centered Design Methodology. By employing this methodology, we produce web sites and applications that enable users to achieve their specific goals with ease, efficiency and satisfaction. Be sure to read about the other stages in our methodology: purposes & features, information architecture, design and content.

Learn about Purposes & features - Phase 2 of the TerpSys User-Centered Design Methodology