What is your site saying?

Is it fresh, appealing and interesting to look at? Or is it tired, cluttered, and disorganized?

Does the site reinforce and advance the corporate brand?

For example:

    • high tech and cutting edge,
    • folksy and grassroots,
    • corporate and professional,
    • warm and helpful, or
    • academic and research oriented.

This first impression may be the only chance you have to interest this viewer. If they are not favourably impressed, they will be long gone before you even knew they were in the shop.

Is the site designed to attract your viewers?

A company engaged in cutting-edge software design requires a site that lets them strut their stuff. The viewers they want to attract will have high bandwidth access and because this is their profession, be engaged by high tech, interactive elements.

But a company selling quilting supplies to rural customers needs a site that will download quickly on dial-up access. Low-tech does not mean boring ....it does mean designing to engage the interest and meet the needs of a specific target audience without inserting elements that will make them impatient.

How hard is your site working?

You website is just another resource, like an employee. Have you clearly articulated what work you require your site to do and designed it towards that end?

For example, is your site expected to:

    • profile the organization,
    • impress funders,
    • intimidate the competition,
    • attract potential employees,
    • sell product,
    • inform and educate,
    • decrease customer service calls, or
    • replace paper manuals and reports.

Be clear with your web team about exactly what work the site is required to do ....or you may get a very pretty site that lolls about in cyberspace, entertaining the occasional viewer but not actually doing any work.

How’s the navigation?

Will viewers find what they want on the first click?
Is the navigation straightforward and easy to follow?
Is the presentation of information organized with a logic that is intuitive to the viewer?

What is intuitive to a software engineer is different from what is intuitive to a purchasing agent or a quilt crafter. We’ve all had the experience of walking back and forth through the grocery store looking for the cranberry sauce. As a cook, my logic says it should be with the canned fruit. But the grocery store designer seemed to think it should be in the baking aisle. Go figure.

I cannot go home without the cranberry sauce so I’ll keep looking. But in the web world customers don’t even have to move their feet to leave your shop ...all it takes is a tap of the index finger and they are out of there. Make it easy for them to find what they need by ensuring that the navigation logic is specific to how they think.

In our global world, your website is the open shop door through which you are presenting your organization’s face to the world ...let’s hope it’s not the scruffy head you crawl out of bed with in the morning.

Crackling Communications knows how to ensure that lasting first impression is exactly what you want.

Carolyn Usher

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