Perhaps the longest-standing philosophical text from China known to Europeans are the Analects. These discuss filial respect and devotion, self-betterment and how the state can best exploit individual skills. There’s a running theme of humility as an essential virtue, and this is a quality that is prodigiously important in web interface design.
The sage, Confucius tells us, is not afflicted by men not knowing him, but is afflicted by not knowing men. Translate this to a website and you should see that we shouldn’t be affected by not being able to disseminate our range of services, just so long as our users can access them simply.
There’s no point in showing how artfully you can put your brand across on your website if your audience can’t use it. Consequently, you need to base your designs on real user experiences and continue to revise them based on their interactions with your site.
- Start by conducting paper-prototyping to determine requirements.
- Test wireframes and user journeys on real people.
- Continue to monitor the design by implementing continual soft changes and evaluating their impact.
A good website responds to its audience.
More on China and WCM to follow.