Challenges in Developing Research‐Based Web Design Guidelines
Mary B. Evans · 2015
Formulating design guidelines from research results can potentially offer two advantages: available empirical knowledge is distilled into a readily accessible form, and practitioners can judge the authority of those guidelines for themselves. But a case history demonstrates that challenges confront the developer of research-based guidelines for website design. First, few studies of people using the Web have yet been conducted. Second, when the process of guideline development is not systematic and designed to control bias and subjectivity, the resulting guidelines can be compromised. This chapter describes the issues and problems one guideline developer encountered and suggests a guideline development process that might resolve them. It also presents 16 web design questions which address issues such as designing for users' technology, and preparing content for the web.