User Centered design

Picture this –

You own a flower shop and delivery business. You put your store together so that the customer, upon entering will feel the flowers fill their senses and find your flowers irresistable.  You’ve created an environment based on your vision, and the experience you want to give your customers, so they find shopping at your store to be a satisfying encounter.

Then you put up a website and it’s just text, a few pictures, and your address. As dull as your store is lovely.

The Environment

Think of your website as an extension of your business, a symbol, an identity consistent with the one you have developed for your business overall.  Now think of the experience that your customer has in your shop, and the environment you have created to make it that way. What you want is to create similar experience for your web visitors.

Defining what you see

So, what is the first thing a customer feels/sees/smells, etc. upon entering your store? The second? The third?

Keep ‘visitor’ as the main focus at all stages of process.
This is a conversation you are starting.
Awareness of this should be the core of the purpose & process.

Creates comfort for visitor’s experience

Perception

Brand Value: emotional response;
Repeated positive experiences
Promise you make to your customers;
Trust which builds over time.