Interactive Prototypes with Axure

The process of user centered design and creating useful websites, should start at an early stage in a web site project. In this post we wanted to share with you our process for visualising and designing the most useful and usable websites.

Before we start any sexy, fancy design, what we want to consider is “is the structure and layout of the web interface easy to understand?”, “does it follow how users think it works in their minds?” This way of working allows us to understand our users “mental models” in their minds, in relation to how the site should be physically structured.

By learning and using this feedback in the web design, we can add to the value of the user experience on a web site, and turn this into an enjoyable experience for our users.

We’ve had an example published on the wireframes website which summarises how we used interactive prototypes worked on a recent project with East Hampshire District Council.

Using interactive prototypes allowed us to confirm the areas of the site that were successful in terms of users being able to achieve the tasks (we were asking them in a user testing interview) successfully and quickly.

More about the way we worked is on the article. We hope you find it interesting.