The six key issues that every site owner needs to tackle.
#1 Get legal:
No more excuses. Your site has to be accessible.
Most websites today do not comply with existing laws for providing full access to disabled audiences. There are over six million disabled people in the UK alone (over two million with vision limitations) and the Government, along with organisations like the RNIB, are getting tough on those organisations whose sites are not accessible.
Being publicly shamed or sued is not a great way to build a good reputation. Nor is it wise to put up barriers to a large customer segment that includes people with disabilities as common as colour-blindness.
Ignoring this issue can clearly have serious consequences, but most site owners have done little to address it. It's not a trivial issue: some modern sites can be 'fixed' but it is hard to retro-fit accessible design and code to most current sites. Many need a redesign.
There's a major upside however: addressing accessibility now also has substantial benefits in terms of future-proofing your site and improving its performance for all audiences today. Every customer is important, and they should all enjoy the best experience your organisation can give them.
We provide free top-level SiteReview audits that include an initial compliance assessment. We can then help you design and develop what you need to.
#2 Simplify.
Don't make customers think about where, or what, everything is.
Often the only people who can easily find what they need on a website are the people who put it there. Very few 'normal' website users find sites easy to use: usually because they are more complicated than they need to be.
There is no possible advantage to a site that is not as usable as possible. Yet most sites strive to be different for the sake of it.
Ask your customers if this is what they want. Go on, we dare you. They'll tell you they want your site to be simple and as relevant to them as possible.
Forming a positive impression is as much about being the same these days as it is about being different. Customers expect to find things in logical places, with familiar labels. They want instant usability.
So should you: an instantly usable site allows customers to look past how it works and focus on who you are, what you offer, and what makes you special.
By simplifying wherever you can, your site will become easier to use. And the less your customers have to think about how your site works, the more they will focus on you.
We can help you identify where changes are needed to improve your site's usability and deliver design improvements to a small area or an entire site.
#3 De-clutter.
Clear out and improve your content.
Look around the internet today and you'll see that the general quality of website content is terrible. At some point, every site has suffered from “just put this up on the website” or “that needs to be live by the morning”. Few seem to have recovered.
In most cases, only a small percentage of the content available is actually useful, and the majority of that could be improved.
Take words. Very few sites have well-written text that has been edited effectively for online consumption. Most has simply been 're-published' from a printed source.
Visual content fares little better: photography is used to make the page look more 'attractive', when it should be used to show a product at its very best or to give a brand life and personality.
'Is it there?' is the first question a customer asks of content, but 'is it useful?' is the most important. Sadly, the answer is rarely 'yes'.
Remember, your customers come to you for your content. They learn from it, are influenced by it and make decisions based on it. No matter what its role, its importance should never be underestimated.
We can help assess and improve existing content, create standards and
style guides, and create new written and visual content for you.
#4 Get smarter.
Improve your performance by removing their obstacles.
Some of the most important interactions with customers online involve process-based services. Yet most websites still deliver critical areas like registration, booking, contacting or purchasing less effectively than they should.
Take this one example: in a consumer shopping site, 'checkout' is a crucial site service, but most of today's sites still put up unnecessary barriers to purchase through badly-designed checkout processes.
Is it any wonder that so many customers quit the checkout process before it is complete?
Irrespective of the type of site, who it serves, or the services it delivers, focusing on the quality of key areas of customer interaction will bring dramatic benefits.
Even a basic contact form on the simplest of sites still needs to be well designed. If you actually want people to use it, that is.
Service processes need to be appealing and easy, not confusing and obstructive. Sometimes that means a radical re-think or a novel approach, but often it simply means getting the basics right.
We can examine your site processes, help you identify weaknesses, invent new approaches or simply improve an existing design.
#5 Gain popularity.
Be more visible and compatible by embracing modern standards.
Most live websites were developed using 'traditional' techniques: programmed to support a specific set of browsers. As a result, they are hard to maintain, do not work well across all computer platforms, and exclude some people completely.
Critically for most site owners, they are also hard for search engines to 'read', so your search engine ratings will be lower. If you're visible at all, that is.
Today, there are established global development standards that ensure better performance, easy maintenance, future-proofing, and availability to a wide range of devices and browsing software.
Every site should be built this way, but very few are. Not yet, at least.
Every customer wants the fastest site possible, and none want to be restricted: they want to access your site on the computer and browser of their choice. And you should give them exactly what they want.
Developing to standards will help you reach the most customers and deliver the best experience to them all. It will also save you money by simplifying future changes and design updates.
Development standards may not be the most exciting thing to think about, but they are among the most important.
We can help you understand the standards, assess what you need to do, and deliver a modern, compatible site that will last.
#6 Stand out.
It's time to develop a personality of your own.
An extraordinary number of websites are a mess: visually cluttered and lacking any coherent design approach. They often look like they were designed by argument.
Very few actually enhance their owner's brand in any way. In an age where a strong brand is vital to success, most organisations seem to accept that the design quality of their website can be sub-standard.
Websites are often the most widely experienced brand channel an organisation has. There is simply no excuse for delivering a weak brand experience online.
Without a distinctive visual and verbal personality, your website is less appealing, less convincing and far less memorable. Put simply, customers will visit fewer pages, buy fewer products, and return less often.
The design of your website should set you apart from everyone else your customers come into contact with. It needs to make you instantly appealing, trustworthy and relevant.
Never underestimate the importance of your brand appeal. If the design of your site does nothing for your brand, your brand will do nothing for your customers.
We can help define and develop your brand personality, design a site that delivers it effectively, and create thetemplates and guidelines to help you maintain it.