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Can’t Spell Usability with YOU

user interfaceOne of the most common comments I hear from clients is, “When I am surfing the Web, I don’t like when a site has…” The truth is your personal opinion doesn’t really matter.

Just because you don’t shop on Black Friday or even think about Cyber Monday, doesn’t mean those are not the most significant days in retail. Just because you never use PayPal to buy anything doesn’t mean your target audience won’t. Just because you don’t like a color, banner, button, right/left hand columns, don’t assume your target market feels the same way. It’s not about you.

When designing your site for web usability, your personal preferences need to be put aside. Focus on the target audience, what each page needs to accomplish and then test different designs to determine which converts the best. Sure, you should look at other sites and see what they are doing to help identify options for your site but be careful of your personal biases in the design process.

I believe that there are still many business owners out there that are stuck in the early 2000’s when it comes to web design. Just look at the number of sites that still have the stock photo of the multi-cultural, mult-gender team in suits and standing in a white conference room. Ugh! Who are these people and what the heck do they have to do with your business?

We, as business owners, still spend too much time on getting the look of our sites just right. Then, we spend too much time looking at our own site after the design is complete.

In today’s Web, it is more about what is going on outside your site than on your site. Of course, take care of the basics. Yes, you need to have your product or service complete, you need to be able to take an order or provide information.

Then, move on. Get relevant traffic to your site. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and news sites are a great place to start building your own social media channels. Let your target audience decide what changes need to be made to your work of art based on click and conversion patterns. Test, test, and test.

With data in hand, you can then determine which conversion rate you like best. At that point, go with your personal preference. 😉

A Lesson in Web Design – Keep the User in Mind

I’m looking to take my family back to Dave and Busters (it’s been quite a while) for some family fun. I have one of their “power cards,” which is where game play credits are stored.  Before we head out, I wanted to check the balance on the card – simple enough, right? Wrong.

Turns out, visiting DaveandBusters.com was a frustrating experience and a lesson in weak site design and usability.  Finding the site was easy (thanks to the new Google predictive results feature – see video). What is interesting is that even after watching annoying flash commercials and fumbling through inadequate navigation, the answer was to call an 888 number and leave a voice message with personal information for some woman in the “corporate office”.

Welcome to the age where databases are hooked to websites and user experience is important.  Here’s the 5 min video, “Dave and Busters – a lesson in designing for the user.”

Building Trust Online

If you think about it, our online interactions are really online conversations. Sometimes with other people but mostly with websites we visit. If a website does not earn a visitors trust in the first 30 seconds, the next site is just a click away.

So why, after many years of online marketing experiences, do so many sites jump out at visitors with designs that spin, move, jump and play uninvited music in an effort to grab attention? What web designer today still believes that these whirligigs are a good idea? (Hint, if this describes your web designer, fire them today. Seriously.)

Keep in mind, people “buy” from websites they trust. Your site should greet users and answer two simple questions right off the bat:

  1. What do you offer?
  2. Why should I trust you?

Doubt the second question matters as much as the first? Think about an online purchase you made recently. In your pre-purchase research, did you see sites that had what you were looking for but the design was a bit scary, the text was written for search engines or it lacked credibility indicators (Verisign, BBB, etc.)? Were you willing to given them your email address? How about providing them with your name and credit card number? I didn’t think so.

In order to give your visitors a reason to stay, keep your pages focused and make sure those two questions are answered clearly right at the top. Let your first online conversation with a prospect be a rapport-building experience not a carnival.

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