This user experience (UX) planning guide is meant to provide you with questions and best practices to consider when starting a website project. It aims to establish a strong foundation for developing an effective and user-friendly web experience.

Planning

• Who is your target audience?
• What are your project sponsor's/client's goals for the site or pages?
• How do you plan to measure success? (KPIs or key performance indicators)

User Research

• What are users' overall goals or motivations for visiting your site or pages?
• Do you know the key tasks visitors want to accomplish (or info they want to find)?
• How often and in what environment will users interact with our site or pages (context of use)?
• What common frustrations or sources of confusion do users experience when interacting with this, or similar, content?
• Have you created user personas to summarize and communicate the user goals, behaviors, interests, questions, and pain points relevant to your project?

Data and Trends

• Have you analyzed competitor websites for strengths, weaknesses and trends? 
• Are there current UX design trends relevant to this project?
• How you collected and reviewed existing data about audiences such as personas or web analytics?
• Is there benchmark data that can be used to measure outcomes of your work?

Accessibility

• Does your site or pages meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines?
• Are you following universal design principles?

UO Brand Standards

• Does your site or pages follow UO brand standards?

Navigation

• Is your navigation clearly visible?
• Does your navigation behave in a predictable manner (following web conventions)?
• Is your navigation in a consistent location across the user interface?
• Does the navigation clearly reflect where the user is located within the site hierarchy?
• Are links organized by priority, the highest priority or most frequently used listed first?
• Do you links use language familiar to end users?
• Do link names clearly communicate what users can expect on the linked page?
• Does link text accurately reflect the name of the page it directs to?
• Are clickable icons clearly labeled?
• Will the back button return users to their previous page (no opening pages in a new tab unless users need to compare information)?

Layout and Information Design

• Do pages have a clear information hierarchy that aligns with users' primary tasks and the goals of the site or page?
• Are you utilizing familiar design patterns to reduce cognitive load?
• Is there a consistent, logical flow to user interactions?
• Is content laid out to support scanning (F pattern, Z pattern, etc.)
• Are similar pages laid out in a consistent manner?
• Do you use white space to avoid visual clutter?
• Are related items located near one another?
• Is the design responsive to different devices and screen sizes?

Content

• Have you conducted a content audit to inventory and assess the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of your content?
• Have you optimized your content for SEO?
• Did you chunk content to support scanning and quick comprehension?
• Are keywords front-loaded in paragraphs and lists to support scanning?
• Are you utilizing headers, sub-headers, bulleted lists, and keywords to support scanning?
• Do bulleted lists have similar sentence structure (all start with a verb or noun) for easier scanning?
• Are list items beginning with varying words to help with scanning and differentiation?
• Are there clear, relevant calls to action?
• Do similar call to action (CTA) buttons utilize the same label text?
• Are you avoiding jargon and acronyms that users might not understand?
• Do images support information seeking and content comprehension (not just decorative)?
• Is the tone and style consistent across pages?
• Do you indicate importance and meaning with something besides color alone?

Review

• Are all links functional and pointing to the correct location?
• Is the content proofread and free of errors?
• Does the search work as expected?
• Are images and media optimized for fast loading?
• Did you test with real end users to ensure a seamless user experience?
• Have you set up a method for tracking page performance and user behavior?
• Do site owners and editors have the training and documentation they need?