Designing Better Websites

Great ideas and technologically superior products are not enough to succeed long-term in business. Ultimately, we need to turn our attention to how we communicate. True communication goes beyond "marketing" which includes the concepts of research, personas and demographics but is biased toward outbound broadcasting of our "messages". One duty of a good Product Manager is to promote and effectively channel inbound communication to improve the product and business. Accepting inbound communication adds eyes and ears to the organization. We can now respond to the needs and opportunities we allow ourselves to hear.

But guess what? Truly great companies take communication much further! They figure out how to employ two-way communication effectively to become more responsive, stay on top of changing conditions and build long-term business relationships.

So what does all this have to do with web design? The best designed websites make it easy for prospective customers to find what they want. In Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, the Eisenbergs used the cat analogy to stress that customers have short attention spans and are often looking for something specific when they visit a website. The well-designed site is "friction-less". The customer sees a path leading to their goal on the homepage. The path answers his questions. leads him to his desired goal and compels him to take action (like hit the Buy button).

The best websites are designed around the needs of prospective customers and employ personas to better understand their motivations. The Eisenbergs and others have drawn upon the literary art of fictional character development to get inside the minds of their customers. An example of a website which was developed around these concepts is Leo Diamond. Admittedly, the wording on the site is a bit schmaltzy for some, but notice how the Home Page provides easy access to answers for the "value buyer" looking for information on the 4Cs, the "fashionable buyer", the "looking for the perfect diamond buyer", the "I want to impress her buyer", ....

The ideas taken from Waiting for Your Cat to Bark WILL create a more effective website. For those with little time to invest in reading, here is my quick synopsis of employing personas to web design:

1. Make a list of who would be looking at your site and why
2. Make each persona a real person in your mind. Your persona may take life as you follow him around in your imagination. If so, write down what you learn.
3. Find people who represent the customer you are trying to reach, interview and observe them one at a time navigating your site. Ask them to tell you what they want to know and what they are thinking as they navigate. (See papers by Jakob Nielsen on how to conduct lightweight usability testing.)
4. Create an easy path on your site for each persona to follow. Address each persona on the Home Page with easy access to each question you have identified through your research. Think of this path as marking a trail in deep woods. Each answer you provide should lead him closer to the destination which is...
5. Your call to action! Whether it's hit the Buy button, call you or download information, know what you want your prospect to do and make it easy for him to follow through.
6. And finally...think of long-term value and relationship-building by providing a site that encourages customers to return.