Web Usability – If a website is worth doing, It’s worth doing right!

Whether we call it usability, wireframing, user centered design, heuristic analysis, information architecture, website sketching or story boarding most webdesigner would agree that this step is more than necessary to any successful design.

At first sight clients seems to all agree as well but when it comes to their project and their money what really matters to them is the subjective part of all design … THE LOOK. Oh yes they have heard about the “3 click rule” and the fact that a site needs to be simple and seems to think once they’ve applied a few of those rules everything will be fine and Aesthetic seems to be the only thing in their mind; pictures, colors, fonts overall atmosphere etc…
Every web designer has been asked to replace the call to action with a picture or some text when the main objective of the site was to generate leads!

To me and I believe to most designers the most important stage is the THINK stage. The stage where we all put it all down on paper, create the structure, think the navigation, the flow of pages, organise the content decide on the colors the font and the pictures without “drawing” anything yet. In fact it is in a way setting up the stage like we would do when writing a book or preparing a movie.

If we think of the way movies are created. Filmmaker do not shoot first, they first have a script that they elaborate then they story board every shoot.
When an author prepares his/ her new book he/she researches his/her topics writes a summary, describes all the characters, the places etc… before actually writing anything.

Website design follows exactly the same pattern. The initial stage is to find an objective for a site (we will talk about that in another blog post) then we must enter that stage where we have to put it all on paper first before we actually draw or build anything.

Most people seems to think that this approach is only meant for big expensive project. From my experience (and I have been doing it for quite a while now) the think stage take around 10% to 15% of the overall budget. It does not matter that your website has a budget of 3K – it is worth doing right!

Ah bon entendeur ….

People often ask what is the secret of selling online?

I’m happy to tell you, because I don’t want these secrets to stay a secret. I would be delighted to see you succeed online. In some form or another I’ve been involved in e-commerce for many years now.  I’ve seen the industry evolve to what it is today, and make no bones about it, just around the corner is a NEW revolutionary way to sell online.

And I promise to tell you all about that when it happens. But what I want to talk about here is what I know about selling online today.

I can safely say that I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work!  I toyed with the idea of including some links to some really bad online shopping sites, but that wouldn’t be fair (would it?) and I’d probably get in a whole heap of trouble. (or would I?)

This is part 1 of my 2 part guide to successful selling on the internet.

In part 2 I intend to elaborate on each of the 10 secrets and why I believe them to be FACT.

1. Be prepared to Work Hard

2. Choose the Right Niche

3. Choose High Quality Products & Services to Sell

4. Make Your Site Easy for shoppers to use

5. Be Honest with your customers

6. Provide a 5 star Service

7. Advertise Your Site

8. Competitive Price Structure

9. Constantly Update your Website

10. And for god sake, be Patient.

How many companies have built a website that simply didn’t work.

It’s like getting 2000 corporate brochures printed and leaving them in the box in a corner of the office. Likewise so many web design companies focus on graphic design – believing that if your site looks good you’ll get visitors. WRONG!!!

What ever your objective – be it lead generation, market share or simply web traffic @ Jenerate we base our efforts around one thing and one thing only.

Your Business Objectives.

Now combine that approach with award winning graphic design, web usability, information architecture, search engine optimisation & some seriously talented techies…

The Result! A website that adds to your bottom line.

If you are aware that mobile web is becoming important and will soon become huge and you have a “desktop” website then you should ask yourself:
DOES MY BUSINESS NEED A MOBILE WEBSITE? so I had a quick look around and found that video with Jakob Nielsen.

For those who don’t know him Jakob Nielsen is THE reference in the world of usability. I have to say I don’t always agree with him and his principle as I think he is too much of a “purist”. To illustrate my thought on that go and have a look at his website: http://www.useit.com/ – Design just does not exist. I believe in balance… I believe graphic design supports usability.

Anyway, the answer is simple: Look at your business and think of your target audience – Why would they come to your site from a mobile device? Jakob summarizes it clearly: Location and time.

Have a look and post your comments

Are you having sleepless nights wondering what is being said on the web about your business?

OK, your’re probably not that worried but I’m sure you’d like to know when your company or brand is mentioned on the web and what they are saying so you can react appropriately.

A very handy tool that solves this very problem is Google Alerts

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Google Alerts are a simple way to automatically get notified when new content goes on the web with the phrase you specify.  You receive an email with every mention of the phrase as well as where it was mentioned.

For example I have an alert set up for “Jenerate” as well as various combinations of case and spelling.  If anyone mentions Jenerate in a post, forum or blog I’ll be alerted.  You can also keep an eye on the competition, suppliers or other movers and shakers in exactly the same way.

Go right now to google.com/alerts and setup an alert for your company name, you’ll be surprised by the results and you might sleep a little easier

“35% of US Web-enabled mobile phone owners said they had participated in some form of mobile shopping in the past year….” – PriceGrabber.com Survey

I read this and other  revealing statistics in a recent article Mobile Shopping Doubles on eMarketer.com.  While you cannot take such statistics to literally, especially in the European context, it did prompt me to think how well are businesses prepared for this new channel to market and the demands of a new kind of shopper.

You only have to try browsing any of the sites you’d typically visit from your desktop to see what a poor experience it is for visitors.  Websites designed for desk/laptop visitors are simply not suitable for smart phone visitors.

Just like the move online for a business required a change in thinking so does the move to using smart phone as a sales tool requires a different approach.

Try visiting your own site today using a iPhone or similar smartphone.  Then honestly ask yourself:

• What was the experience like
• Did you get past the first page
• Could you easily do a transaction, make an enquiry, etc

Don’t despair if you think the experience was poor but don’t ignore the results either. The smart phone shopper is here to stay, now is the time to embrace them, before they go somewhere else

So everyone is telling you that you should be winning business using Facebook but should I start with my own page, a Group or a Fan page.

The rule of thumb is:

• Personal Page is just that, personal.
• Group for quick attention and events.  Think of class reunion.  Active for a while but can go quite just as quick
• Fan Page for long term relationship.

Fan Pages also give you more options to configure and add widgets too.

Good article on this topic can be found at SearchEngineJournal.

Customising FaceBook FanPages, here’s ours,  is a very quick and cost affective way to use the internet to promote your brand or business and should be part of any on-line campaign your marketing department are considering.

For my first blog entry, I thought I should start by introducing myself but I don’t want to give it all in one day – I’m like that -- so let’s start with the basic stuff – I’m Claire!

If you need more info you can always give it a guess.

Good – now the first thing I’d like to start screaming about is the word “design”.

Wikipedia (cause we don’t use dictionary anymore, do we?) states that “Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system.” -- and I have to say I agree!

For me design and more specifically web design is about graphic design, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, e-marketing and technology. It is the sum of all those things mixed for a client’s need that make a great website and value your presence online to your target audience.
In everyone’s mind, on the other hand, design is about “drawing nice images”.

We, as designers (I have given another clue, haven’t I?), hate that minimalist idea about ourselves.

Because we don’t like people thinking our work is “subjective” (because it’s not – we know what we are doing and why!) we have looked into adding some sort of science to it. We’ve come across cognitive psychology and heuristic to support our choices which became known as Web Usability.

A few years down the line, Jakob Nielsen and a few others are the god of Web Usability. They created a few books and white-papers about usability that are great but amusingly “too accessible”!
Nowadays, you frequently find yourself in clients meetings with UI (User Interface) experts that only swear by the 3 click rule. Now, how to get out of it and still make the client happy?

Thanks to Google and other Online Marketing tools, we now have another way to support our choices. Google analytics and website optimizer have saved the day!

We know that design by consensus does not work. We can now prove it by testing all the necessary designs for a certain period of time and then we just need to read the numbers out loud!

Don’t get me wrong, clients know their audience and they know what works with them unfortunately taste and subjectivity always get on the way of objective thinking. The designer will always design a site with the target audience in mind.
The client sometimes tend to forget its audience because a website is what represents them as well and it is very hard to portray an image we don’t find “beautiful”. Google tools then help the client test its audience and find the perfect match.

Have a look at this video from Google: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc086xb6qS4)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc086xb6qS4

To my point of view – as a designer -- this is a exciting tool. I can make more than one design therefore content everyone (me, the client, the client’s audience) and I see results – we could even organize a bet on which alternative will win!!!
Only trouble is to have clients that actually understand and agree with this and therefore are ready to spend effort, time and money into testing their site…. ah bon entendeur (another clue? Maybe!)

The key to a successful website is to combine the right ingredients, in the right measure at the right time with a company who achieves results.

Ingredients

• 1 Cup overflowing with Creative Flair
• 200ml of Strategic Thought
• 100gms of Technical Expertise
• 2 tbsp of Effective Project Management
• 50g of Award Winning Graphic Design
• 1 Full glass of Content Management Systems
• 1 50g of Marketing Know How
• 250ml of Creative Content Writing
• 50gm of Social Media
• 2 tbsp of Email Marketing
• 20 years of Industry Expertise

To serve garnish with a healthy dollop of Awards on a bed of Great Responses and Client Testimonials