Is your website communicating to your customer?
Tracy Ponich
Web Strategy Consultant
18 July 2008
Too often websites communicate best internally to the business, not the customer. Navigation, information architecture (or the site blueprint), website labels and content reflect internal structures and company language, acronyms and all. Done the right way, putting in the effort to make web pages customer centric, the website becomes an effective communication and conversion tool designed for the right audience.
There are few agencies and companies that take customer centricity, also called user experience design (UXD) to heart. This amazes enthusiastic practitioners as the commonsense processes and principles behind UXD give competitive advantage, driving acquisition and retention. It’s simple. Websites clearly built for the end user engage and generate positive attitudes towards products, services, and a brand. The site becomes sticky, reducing the likelihood of bounce, or quick exit – often to a competitor.
So what exactly does user experience design mean?
It means content delivery and web page interfaces designed expressly for the easy, intuitive completion of tasks. The end user (the customer) is at the core of every design and functionality decision to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction.
The UXD lexicon includes: usability, usefulness, findability and accessibility. All pretty straightforward, except perhaps for the latter. In this context accessibility targets those with visual or motor impairment, or other disabilities, so they are not excluded from using a website. In fact, a good to know for all businesses is that accessibility compliance is another compelling reason to embrace user experience design. Website accessibility to W3C standards is not only about social equity and good will, in Australia it is also the law (see www.humanrights.gov.au).
As far as process, UXD embraces user testing from early stages of web page or interface planning. More often than not, key business stakeholders who understand their customers so well in different environments are astonished by the feedback. Evidence that consumer behaviour online is frequently a different kettle of fish.
Start small, start now, it’s worth it
UXD strategies may be applied to entire websites, for example in a revitalisation or build, or simply to key web pages or online campaigns on the site. Companies get best results by acting sooner, rather than waiting for the big project, particularly in times of tougher economic conditions and decreasing consumer spend. Not only will user experience design better drive conversions and brand loyalty, companies gain valuable insight into their customers’ behaviour on the Internet.
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