Develop the website with the user experience in mind and not secondary aspects such as design or that the website is liked by the CEO.
The website is a very important element in the development of the company on the Internet. Therefore, its development is not a trivial task because web users are increasingly demanding.
The time the user is the critical element: users do not give a second chance. According to a K&R study, on average, after 5 clicks and not finding the information users were looking for, they feel frustrated and in that case, 83% go to another website.
This analysis is in line with the following one carried out by Forrester Research.
This analysis shows that the reasons why a user leaves a website are basically two: for lack of functionality (slowness, deficiencies in searches, poorly defined links) or for lack of information (does not have the information that is sought or About the company).
Analyzing these concepts, it is observed that information and functionality should be priority aspects when designing a website, above other criteria such as design that are usually given more importance.
Other differences on the Internet is that users do not read, they just "scan" the text making it more difficult to capture their attention. The solution is to present the contents in a clear and concise way.
Therefore, the concept of user experience is very important, being a fundamental factor for the success of the website. User experience is the degree to which the user achieves the objectives that led him to visit the website. Elements such as usability, design, corporate image, compliance with ethical standards, etc. they are part of the user experience.
From this definition, another important conclusion is drawn and that is that the experience depends entirely on the objectives for which the website was visited. These objectives can be of different types: getting specific information, getting more information about the company, finding the product you were looking for, having more technical specifications about a certain product, obtaining the study you were looking for, etc.
So there is only one option: develop the website with the user experience in mind and not secondary aspects such as design or that the CEO likes the website. If this is not done, the website will have no results and possibly the end point of the company's Internet project. In addition, it should be considered that different types of users may have different objectives and therefore the website must be designed to meet the particular objectives of each of them.
When it comes to website development, you should have some clear concepts:
- web developed coherently with the general strategy of the company. If the objective is to attract customers, the website must be developed for it. If the objective is to build loyalty to the existing ones, the approach will be different, as if the objectives are brand reinforcement, selling through an e-commerce solution, the search for allies,… On the web, functionality is always above the design. That is a critical concept to develop a website correctly. As previously discussed, users leave the website for reasons related to functionality and never for aesthetic reasons. Design concepts in other media are not directly "inheritable" to the web. Following the previous reasoning, functionality should be above design and therefore designs that combine aesthetics and functionality should be sought. The website must add value to the visitor. There must be a clear proposal for users to repeat their visits: if you only have four pages of corporate information, users will visit but will not return. You must think about what your users are interested in: information about the company, technical information about the sector, general news, news about the sector, a discussion forum,… each case needs a solution but you always have to think about how to add value to the visitor. In this context, the creation of an electronic newsletter is very interesting.
