Website Analysis: How Appearance Affects User Experience – Part 1

This is the second in a series of posts about website analysis. Here, the focus is on how to look at your website to evaluate your visitor’s experience.

Slow-loading sites are abandoned quickly.

The previous post, “Website Analysis: The First Step is to Know the Goals,” stressed the importance of  understanding both your business and website goals. The next step is to examine how well your site communicates these objectives. For example, if your site is for a university, objectives might be to enable students to find a course, make registration easy, and obtain financial aid information. If you have a need for a company intranet then locating people readily is unquestionably a necessity. A site's appearance should address visitors' needs to find information easily; design is one of the major factors that influences this need. When looking at your website, try to see it through the eyes of visitors, a.k.a. your prospects.

• Is the load time fast or slow?
• Is the company or website purpose clear?
• Does the design look professional or amateurish?

Load Time – Nobody likes waiting. A recent study notes that the average time people will wait for a website to load is six seconds before abandoning it. Three seconds or less is the goal.

Purpose – Since visitors want to know what your business is all about quickly, it is important to establish a visual identity (your logo) and put it in a location that is easily seen. A descriptive line, placed on or near the logo, contributes mightily to telling visitors what you do and can help search engine optimization (SEO).

Design – Your website must reflect your brand and should be designed in a style that appeals to your target audience. The colors, imagery, and fonts should entice them to stay on the pages and demonstrate, in a millisecond, that your organization is worthy of their consideration. Good website design lets visitors find your content areas effortlessly and presents that content in an easy to read format. You may also want to take into consideration that your site may need to be accessible to people with disabilities. All of this takes time to research, develop, and test. Oh, and unless it’s appropriate for your industry, keep the cute pictures of Fido off of your website and limit them to your Facebook page like we do!

Summary

Load time, purpose, and design influence your site visitors’ experience right from the get-go, and you better show them how to get what they want immediately or they’ll bounce right out of your site onto the next. It may be ironic, but in order to help your visitors find what they want quickly, it’s imperative for you to devote plenty of time on your website’s appearance and design.

 

Part 2 of this post will discuss four other items to consider about website appearance and design: the ease to see important info, appearance on smartphones, easy to find contact info, and a favicon.

For More Info

Learn more now about analyzing a website by viewing the Website User Experience Assessment found on this page and also by taking advantage of Act One’s FREE 5-Step Website Analysis to help get you started.

Website Analysis: Your First Step is to Know the Goals

This is the first in a series of posts about website analysis. Here, the focus is on why the first step must be to gain thorough knowledge of the company and website goal(s).

Image by Jerry Breen - www.newbreen.com

If you’re reading this, then performing an analysis of your business website is nearing the top of your “To-Do List.” Perhaps you had put it off because you were too busy running your business, or you just had no idea where to start.

Good news. You don’t have to drive yourself crazy trying to understand techie talk and content marketing speak. By updating the content on your site regularly and implementing simple inbound marketing techniques, the search engines will see the activity, think that you’re a vibrant company, and boost your website rankings.

But before making any changes to your website, take a step back and figure out what you want to accomplish.

Start with Old-Fashioned Goal Setting 

As the quotable baseball great Yogi Berra is said to have proclaimed, “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.” This is certainly true with websites.

Take advantage of the goals you already set for your business or organization, or if they are loosely defined, tighten them. Then outline what you want the website to do that will help accomplish these goals.

Determine Your Website Type

The type of website that works best for your organization or segment within depends upon the business model. Included are:

• Informational and Reference – These sites generally present a lot of information across many pages. Most often used by non-profit organizations and by others who have a need to disseminate knowledge.
• E-commerce – One of the most popular styles used by retail businesses if you have products to sell and the ability to fulfill orders quickly.
• Corporate – The needs are varied here whether it’s to: 
• attract new clients
• keep current ones informed
• combine all of the above, plus act as the front-end for a company intranet 
• News – for either general or topical news outlets to present up-to-date or breaking information 
• Event – think of conferences, along with concert and holiday promotions, where there aren’t a lot of pages and also need to include e-commerce ability to sell tickets and/or to register people
• Gallery – this style works best for artists of all types who want to display their work in a portfolio 
• Community or Social – for connecting people with like-minded concerns or needs and allow access to member profiles
•  Review – a site where visitors go to either learn about others experiences about a specific product in which they are interested or to actually conduct research about certain products.

Some organizations will require websites that contain elements of each type listed above, and that’s okay.

Summary

Don’t over-complicate the initial planning stage; the first steps should be to:

• Examine the goals of the business or organization 
• Determine what you want the website to do to reach the goals 
• Select the website type

Yes, analyzing a website can be a bit of a challenge for anyone. Establishing goals and defining the structure of your website will help get your business where you want it to go.
 

For More Info

Upcoming posts will discuss more ways to analyze a website, including user experience issues regarding a site’s appearance, functionality, marketing, viewer engagement/social media marketing, content, and search engine optimization.

Learn more now about analyzing a website by viewing the Website User Experience Assessment found on this page and also by taking advantage of Act One’s FREE 5-Step Website Analysis to help get you started.