Your Website Could Be a LOT Better

A conversation with Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus

Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus are the authors of Web Design for ROI, and will be featured in a webcast hosted by Aquent on May 22. Their approach to web design, while theoretically informed, is relentlessly pragmatic. As they put it, "Our work is about more than just getting people to think about web design. We want them to act."

If you want to improve the performance of your site, read their book. If you want a glimpse into their approach, read the rest of this post!

1. Web Design Isn't What You Think It Is

"Everyone thinks of design in terms of 'graphic design' - colors, fonts, logos, etc.," says Sandra. "We're working with a more strategic and multi-disciplinary concept of design, one that takes business goals as its starting point. Designing from this perspective allows you to determine whether or not all the elements truly support those goals."

"Our notion of design is really about problem-solving," adds Lance, "and goes beyond interface design or even experience design, because it doesn't just involve the creative folks. It involves all the different people on the team, from the business owner on down, and making sure everyone rallies around the objectives of the site."

"We decided to write this book," he continues, "because we were frustrated at the money being left on the table by under-utilized sites with a lot of potential. Design needs to be about helping a company succeed as a business, and that means thinking about costs, customers, and results. Ultimately, we want to take the discipline up a notch."

2. Small Changes Can Bring Big Results

"People are always surprised when we tell them they can improve site performance with relatively small, inexpensive changes. Well, it's true," Sandra explains. "Consider buttons. We've seen people increase check-out throughput by 40 percent just by increasing the size of the check-out button.

"Now, stop reading this and look at your buttons. Are they large enough? Are they legible? Are they placed appropriately? Do the most important buttons stand out? Adjusting these elements can cost next to nothing and can have a major impact."

"Another quick fix we recommend," Lance says, "is adding a functional tag line to your home page. That can solve one of the web's most common problems: 60 percent home page bounce rates.

"Web users have two questions when they arrive at your site: 'Is this what I expected to find?' and 'Does this site have what I'm looking for?' Your tagline should answer those questions instantly. I'm talking simple text, less than 10 words, that is descriptive, explanatory, and intuitive."

3. Your Site Is a Business and It Needs a Plan

"The biggest mistake most companies make is not having a site strategy," Lance asserts. "Without a strategy, you have no corporate agreement on what you are trying to accomplish. It also probably means that you are bringing off-line thinking and ideas to the online world. Developing a site strategy demonstrates that you respect the web as a unique medium with its own set of rules."

"To come up with a solid strategy, you need to know your audience," adds Sandra. "Few companies take the time to write down who their audience is and who among them are most valuable to the business. Since they don't know who they are talking to, they don't know what to say to them.

"Think about it. You wouldn't rent commercial space without knowing what you are going to do with it. Why would you develop a website without a clear purpose and a plan for accomplishing it?"

4. There Is a Difference between "Data" and "Intelligence"

"Once you've figured out your strategy and your goals, you need to configure a dashboard," Lance says. "It should be customized to your needs and should help you track those elements that really matter, what people call, 'key performance indicators.'

"You need to be strategic when choosing metrics, and that means thinking about what you are going to do if what you are measuring goes up or goes down. The numbers need to be connected to actions, so they should be annotated: 'This is up due to a partnership with X.' One line of text provides a context that doesn't just tell you the number, but tells you something about it."

"Just as your audience should guide decisions you make about your site," Sandra says, "you need to design your reports so they speak to their intended audience. Sometimes, the way you communicate results is as important as the results themselves. Really understanding your executive audience and applying the principles of information design to your reports transforms data into intelligence."

5. You CAN Make Your Site Better

"Having a plan and being able to clearly communicate that to all stakeholders and contributors is key to site improvement," insists Lance. "This is why articulating a strategy for your site is so important. Just the process of formulating the strategy can get people on board by providing them with a framework for understanding their roles and a vision for what they need to do."

"Coming from the usability field," Sandra adds, "I know that some changes require an executive champion who can influence other members of the organization and drive the process through. To get the support of such a champion, we recommend initiating some small improvement projects that will serve as a proof of concept. Once you have some actual results, you can take them to the decision makers and say, 'Look what we did.'"

"Go for the quick wins," Lance concludes, "and use those to make the larger case. You may have to start small in a 'skunk works' kind of way, but people can't argue with data. Good ideas get killed for lack of a concrete business case. That's why our advice is, 'Make it concrete.'"

Image Courtesy of m. gifford.

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