The workshop, to be held on 23 June 2004 (from 10:00 until 16:30) at User-Lab (Birmingham Institute of Art and Design http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/), costs £50.00 GBP and is free to members of The Usability Professionals' Association http://www.ukupa.org.uk/ and British HCI Group http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/.

The media spokesperson for User-Lab is John Knight, Usability Engineer.

About User-Lab: http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/research/userlabSite/user.html

User-Lab is a non-profit making organisation based at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/. The lab is part of Institute’s Research Department and is staffed by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in digital media design, human-computer interaction, psychology and software engineering.

The lab comprises three purpose built testing and design labs that are equipped with latest technology for conducting behavioural, physiological and psychological research. The lab has two related functions: to carry out research into digital experience and, based on results of this work, to develop an innovative commercial service.

In two years since its inception, lab has been involved in a number of collaborative projects with RDAs, FEs, charities and public and private sector. The outcomes of these projects range from assisting start up businesses to training, as well as lab’s core business of user-centred design services.

User-Lab runs Web Accessibility Training with Royal National Institute for Blind (RNIB) http://www.rnib.org.uk/ and ECOTEC an international research and consultancy organisation http://www.ecotec.com/.

----Contact----

Elemental PR:

Rachel Hawkes, Account Executive, Elemental PR Email: user-lab@elementalpr.co.uk

Direct Telephone: +44 (0)870 745 9292, Mobile: +44 (0)7930 375663, Fax: +44 (0)870 745 9293, Website: http://www.elementalpr.co.uk

Address: Second Floor, 145 -157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, England, UK

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Graphical Content Backgrounds and other graphics used should fit with textual content. Think back to bank and game sites comparison. Finding free graphics or making your own is easier when you think about what will fit your site and message you are trying to send.

Do looks counts? In a word: YES. The way your page looks is vital to how effectively it does its job. Think about sites in following contexts:

Plain = uninteresting: If site is too plain, people won't be interested and may not stick around long enough to get to important information.

Busy = disorienting: If page is a riot of images and colors, people may be overwhelmed and visit another site just to give their eyes a rest. Likewise for lots of animations no matter how they are colored or topic of them. They distract eyes from important stuff of your site.. what you do, why you do it, and why you do it o­nline.

Pastels can be positive or negative. Pastels generally are associated with feminine or with babies. Think about colors and meanings associated with them. The negative side of that is: unless your site is targeting women or infant products and services it could leave your visitor with a feeling that you are wishy washy, a person who can't make up his mind and often allows others to tell them what he thinks, needs, wants. In reality that may not be way you are but perception is 100% of total picture here. People don't want to do business with someone who might not be person they need to be dealing with.. they want to know who is in control. Others might try to take advantage of these people thinking that if they are forceful enough they can get more for less than going rate.

Dark colors can also be positive or negative. They can be percieved as shady and dishonest, or used as backgrounds to pull out textual and graphical content of page while blending into background as they are intended to do. Too much dark leaves a person in dark, while a healthy blend of dark and light(light not bright, there's a difference) brings out lighter qualities to a better effect sometimes and adds depth to pages that use o­ne main color in theme.

Complementary colors: colors should compliment each other rather than complement. Putting wrong colors together can be just as disorienting as a busy site and often construed same way. Complementary colors lead to inconsistency both in design and perception. Complementary colors are exact opposites and using too many of them creates a loud brassy noise... who are you yelling at? Why are you yelling? Won't your product stand o­n it's own value or are you trying to distract from fact that it's substandard but you still want to make dollars? When people are being yelled at they don't stick around very long if they have a choice. Contrasting colors o­n other hand can compliment each other and give depth to your pages. My rule of thumb here is to choose 1-3 contrasting colors that compliment each other and work them into a consistent theme.

At this point you can see why some sites are weeks in planning before first page is ever made. Even with all that, you still have to live with site as you will visit it yourself at least o­nce a day. Hopefully you'll visit it more often than that but do so at least o­nce. Also after all this planning and careful mapping out just what you want your site to be, you will continually tweak and update look and feel of your page. Information changes and your site needs to reflect these changes so it's a continual process. In addition, some sites need to make seasonal changes as their products or services change with seasons.

Stephanie Cordray is owner of http://www.totalweb-inc.com and http://www.jc-hosting.net . She can be reached by emailing: scordray@totalweb-inc.com . In addition she operates several free resource sites: http://www.writingwise.com http://www.designer-edge.com http://www.v-chatterbox.net http://www.webmastersforum.org