Web business beginner series - Part 4: How to design a Web site for the customer? Monday , July 20 , 2009 by Admin

Design your Web site for the customer

Design your Web site to let the visitors and customers complete their tasks, don’t design it for yourself. Usability, not attractiveness is the goal behind successful business Web sites. Hasnain Zaheer asserts that successful Web design is oriented towards fulfilling business objectives and customers tasks, not towards satisfying the visual sensibilities of the Web site's owner.

Introduction

The most important issue in Web design is not visual design but information design. Even if you have hired a Web designer or developer, you should be aware of basic Web design principles.

Information design

When your Web developer gets down to work, information design is almost the first task they do and it roughly translates to a site map. You must spend time at this stage to ensure that your business priorities are reflected in the information design.

Interact with the rough model of your Web site in the form of page layouts and diagrams showing the flow of information. Assume that you are a customer and check how data flows from one page to another, what activity is accomplished at what stage and (whether) what confirmation or error message are provided.

1. Is the navigation smooth?

2. Do you feel confident about the Web site at each stage of its functioning?

Repeat by assuming to be a customer with a different objective each time. For example:

1. A customer who has linked from a search engine and has landed for the first time

2. A customer who is comparing your product prices with other sites

3. A customer who want to place an order on your Web site

4. A customer confirming the status of an order already placed;

….and so on.

Assume as many customer profiles as you can imagine and check the robustness of your Web site to satisfy each of these profiles.

Approve the site map after you are fairly satisfied with your experience on the paper model of your Web site.

Home page

The home page is your business’ front office. Ensure that your home page is not ‘over-done’. Stick to a simple colour scheme that matches your business’s brand colours and there should be no moving images or animations to divert your customer’s attention. After all, you want your customers to accomplish the objective that they are visiting your Web site for, not just get impressed by its flashy presentation.

The home page should not be long-winded. It should introduce your business to the visitor and guide (link) the visitor to other parts of the site that help them accomplish their objective of the visit whether to gather information, check a product’s details, place an order, check status of an order, subscribe a newsletter, get your contact phone number or any other task.

Avoid the temptation of a Flash or graphic introduction that need to be switched off before the visitor access the home page content.

Ensure that the graphics and designs are in line with your branding strategy and style.

An excellent guide to design your home page is written by Jakob Nielsen of NN Group.

Web site usability

The key principle of usability is to ensure that you design for the normal and not for the exception. It has been a decade since the Internet is in popular use and surfers by now expect certain things to be normal. For example, they expect to find log-in fields at a certain location, they expect to know about you with an “About us” page and would like to check your contact information to assure themselves that they can trust you.

The user should get the information or feature where they expect to find it and NOT where your Web developer chooses to place it. If you sell your products through the Web site, ensure that the customer knows the status of the transaction at every stage and is informed of accurate prices with information about shipping charges, taxes, delivery time and return policy.

Provide a site search button for the user to quickly find information, provide descriptive error messages that clearly mention what to do next and so on. There are hundreds of usability guidelines and you should ensure that you follow at least the major ones.

Some resources to learn more are Use it and Usable Web.

Compelling Content

Have content that is interesting and adds value. This will help you to develop long-term relationship with a visitor who has come to check out your product but leaves with such an impression about your business that he intends to visit or purchase again or recommend to others.

Detailed product specifications, clear pricing information, a helpful returns policy are just the basics. If you have expert knowledge about your business domain, then provide articles and links that help the visitor expand their knowledge. You can also provide the option of a newsletter subscription. This will help you to contact your customers regularly.

Standards Compliance

Ensure that your Web developers use technology that is in compliance with prevailing standards. For example, they don’t use browser specific HTML tags and only those defined in the current version of HTML standards so that the Web site is not dependent on specific browsers and can be used with future versions of prevailing browsers. Ensure that your Web site is compliant with World Wide Web Consortium standards.

A customer-oriented design is one of the most important steps in conducting successful online business.

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