When it comes to the industry of Interior Architecture, I personally do not own much knowledge into preferred skills and traits within the industry, so to develop a website which is focused towards this industry, more knowledge was needed. To begin, research into the different types of users was undertaken, allowing for the site to be focused towards the specific type of user, in turn providing the opportunity for the site to reach out to that audience and show all of the requirements which might be wanted by the user.

To begin the user research different agencies and those within the industry were talked to, collecting primary and secondary research into the different types of user and their personality traits. Collecting information from potential users was the first element of collecting user research, so a set of short questions were discussed with architecture students and staff, allowing for a wide variety of those within the industry and the competitors which the client’s portfolio site would be up against in industry. The questions asked were formatted to provide quantitative and qualitative data.

As seen in the results above, the majority of target users thought that a website would need to stand out from the crowd and really demonstrate the user’s work in a positive manor to attract attention. Many also mentioned that the use of colour is really important along with a clean layout. Working within architecture many users thought that a website was different to showcase work, as it would usually been shown at shows being put up on large boards so all can see, which is something that would need to be taken into consideration when developing the website. Along with this most of the users would prefer to see the ‘most recent’ post in comparison to the ‘most proud’ which is another element to take into account before working on the development of the site. Finally there were a range of different social media links which came up in conversation of which would be most preferred, so these links would also need to be included into the site.

Overall from collecting user research it has provided the opportunity to get a better understanding of the industry and what the user would want to see from a portfolio website along with the potential accompanying social media.