Does this sound familiar?

We just need a site refresh.

Our design is so antiquated that people don’t trust our site.

We have tons of great information, but nobody can find it.

If so, you’re not alone. Recently I’ve met a series of web product managers who mean well, think deeply about the problem, but are really stuck on how to proceed and make things so much better.

This series of articles is for you: How to get unblocked from your existing site and imaging what’s to come with your revision.

I’d say that there are 6 components of a winning web redesign.

1. Clear Strategy

I think my approach is consistent with many of the top design firms: Begin with your strategy.  An online strategy for your web presence has at a minimum:

• • A list of prioritized enterprise needs.  What do your stakeholders need to accomplish with your online presence?  Who do they want to attract to your site?  What will those users want to accomplish?  What would be metrics for success were this to be the case?
  • A prioritized list of audiences for your site.  Who are your ideal audiences?  Of the top 3, order them to be clear. Why would they want to come to the site?  What tasks are they coming to solve?  What are they like psychographically?  Name an example of each kind of volunteer.
  • A list of audience tasks.  Complete the exercise of collecting your personas, and make sure the stakeholders in the room all agree (and don’t just nod=yes).

Spend as much time as you need, but make sure your team all agree on the goal of the project, who your audience is, and what they are trying to accomplish.  Once you have all of those, you can begin empathize with the audience, and focus your energy on what needs to be done to move the design forward.

We find that putting a almost life-size torso image on poster board, combined with some post-it notes to begin to see how it all might be organized differently.

See you for Part 2: Compelling Content.

“We just need a quick website refresh”

If this sounds familiar, then take a look at my slideset below.  I think my discussion of:

1. Strategy
2. Content
3. Analytics
4. Visual
5. SEO
6. Social Media

…will be welcome.  Please try to take your company/client back from the bring and get them to be more systematic about the “quick refresh”.  It will be worth it in ROI!

All comments welcomed.

Here they are in summary:
1. Navigation – KISS – Keep it simple
2. Navigation – Less is more (restricting navigation in the right circumstance improves the user experience)
3. Content – Provide visual clues that direct the eyes to the right content.
4. Content – Create Scanable content
5. Interaction – Make the next step “duh” obvious
6. Interaction – use Search + Refine
7. Persuasion – Invoke reciprocity, social validation, and similarity
8. Persuasion – Find the right social networks and provide thought leadership

Customer Research: Is your ear on the the right internet tubes? http://bit.ly/oZU1