The Science And Art Of Web Usability

User Interface Design is one of the most eye-catching issues concerning usability in recent years, among which Web interface design has gradually become a specific research area with more and more attention on "soft" Interface. How to embody Web interfaces not only with attractiveness but also good characteristics of usability, and how to help users achieve their goal through web design, is the core and primary task of web interface design. Here we conduct the research of Web interface design semantics, Web usability and their relations with the knowledge of Design Psychology, Cognitive Linguistics, Art Design and some web technologies as well.User and Tasks are the foundation and ultimate basis of Web interface design. The essay begins with the conceptions of the "User model", "Task levels" in terms of Web interface design, and makes a brief comparison with "User-Centered Design"(UCD) and "Activity-Centered Design"(ACD).To study design semantics from a semeiology perspective is the Product Semantics' way to do the research. With references to Product Semantics and Linguistics as well, the essay analyzes semantic definitions in Web interface design, including "Vocabulary", "Grammar", "Context", etc., and also specific problems involving configuration and color semantic and also their influence to design style. It also gives attention to the application of metaphor and the culture differences concerned. Besides, the essay sets foot in the design semantics brought about by the Web 2.0 culture and its topple-down of traditional web interface design theories.With all these, the essay focuses on four specific problems in usability: the usability of navigation systems, of texts, of forms and of homepages, which involve quite a deal of design affairs such as browsing usability, global navigation systems, search usability, link usability, information compositions and so on. With the fact that each and every element in Web interface design has its own pros and cons, we have to make design compromises to achieve the goal of the website during usability design process, thus, the net usability is used to make sure if the compromises worth.The upgrading from usability design to user experience design is one to enhance more user delight and satisfaction. As to user experience design, is Web features the more the better? To explore the design in user experience, the essay discriminates two misunderstandings in terms of Web experience to identify the meaning of true user experience, and gives explanations of the model, levels and assessment in experience design.The usability design in the realization of project "FTD (fashiontrenddigest.com)", a web 2.0 style website, has practiced all the design philosophies above. In addition, we carried out both client-side test and user research to test and know user favorites, homepage usability and user satisfaction of the project, and made correspondent improvement to make it work better.