Human-to-Human Website Design

[mandy]

What is new is the realization that just having any old website isn’t enough. The quality of your site and the nature of its content are paramount and your ability to communicate with your audience is the key.

A good website is built on two basic truths—that the internet is an interactive medium and that the end user is in fact human. In other words, it is meant to be an experience. As with any adventure, a little strategic thought is needed to ensure that the experience is enjoyable.
Respect me

Remember that the person on the other side of the computer screen is a human being. They want to know that your business understands them...

full article: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/humantohuman

[mandy]

A related article:

Falling into the one-size-fits-all trap is all too easy. One top site designer I spoke with described a role-playing design recipe that, at first glance, might seem as goofy as dancing alone with an electric guitar, but he swears by it. Here’s how it works: Let’s say you are the designer for a site called Laptops-‘R-Us, and your goal is to sell laptops. Starting with your home page, take the following steps to name your users and mimic them.

Tape several sheets of paper next to each other on the wall. Write profiles for your potential customers on the sheets. Name them, identify what stage of life they are in, write down what each user wants from your site, and identify how your home page and subsequent links cater to each user most efficiently—or don’t cater to them well...

full article: http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/08/02/web.../#more-998