The website usability course: user experience

This course empowers marketing people to play a leadership role in getting a website conceived and designed right. It is also for those designers and programmers who need to gain a better insight into the business, usability and user experience aspects of web design and development.

Those who actually build a site need to work within a framework that has been carefully crafted by someone with a business and marketing perspective.It teaches a structured approach to developing a website, clarifies technical terms and concepts, and provides powerful methodologies and guidelines for making sure that the site your developers and designers build for you is customer centric and delivers on business objectives.

The 13 requirements for a commercially effective site plus:
• Designing and testing Usability
• How to use personas and scenarios
• Key rules of Information Architecture
• Developing Functional Requirements
• Defining your Content Strategy and writing for the web
• Converting visitors into customers
• Choosing and managing a web site developer
• The seven step methodology for Professional site development
• Testing
• Metrics for measuring effectiveness and improvement

The never-ending global explosion of digital innovation presents either welcome growth opportunities or serious business threats, depending on how strategically positioned you are to deal with it. Get to know 'The New Consumer'.

You will learn the principles of great web design, from the perspectives of
• visitor usability
• visual appearance
• information architecture
• technical functionality
• marketing purpose
• effective e-commerce

And you'll learn the powerful methodologies and guidelines that ensure the site delivers on business objectives - while satisfying customer needs.

Why website usability?

Commercial websites are about business. They are not all about visual design and technical code. Websites exist for any number of business reasons: brand development, retailing, consumer community building, corporate lead gathering, customer service, and so on.

While programmers and designers play a vital role in site design, they need to work within a framework that has been carefully crafted by a person or team that has a business perspective, typically a marketing executive or business manager.

You will learn how to research and define all of the requirements for your site, so development teams are always on the same page. You'll also learn how to specify technical and creative design details of your site, the attributes of effective content and content management strategies, and you'll learn the language and concepts that allow you to discuss these with designers, information architects, programmers, or IT people.

The course is very pragmatic and down to earth, makes tons of practical recommendations and suggestions, and points you to sources and providers.

Who should attend?

* business strategists
* marketing managers, product and brand managers
* new product development people
* advertising, marketing and PR agency executives
* website developers, information architects, and creative personnel
* e-commerce and e-marketing personnel
* customer service management

The course is led by Karen Parkin, a digital strategist, e-marketer, corporate e-commerce expert and international internet business veteran, who has managed major award-winning web development projects for some of the world's largest corporations.

Date: 07 February 2011
Venue: City Lodge, Fourways, Johannesburg
Cost: R 2600 incl VAT, incl lunch & refreshments (Group & Early Bird discounts apply)

Date: 26 February 2011
Venue: City Lodge, Fourways, Johannesburg
Cost: R 2600 incl VAT, incl lunch & refreshments (Group & Early Bird discounts apply)

Date: 24 January 2011
Venue: Winchester Mansions, Sea Point, Cape Town
Cost: R 2600 incl VAT, incl lunch & refreshments (Group & Early Bird discounts apply)