Intellisites, the smart choice for web design

Since websites are built to be used by all types of people, it makes sense that a variety of folks should give a new website a try during the development process. One way to do this effectively is to call together a focus group and gather feedback about how your website runs.

When focus groups are called into service, a few different things can happen.

And Some of Those Things Are Good…

A lot of positive things can come out of a focus group. When the group comes to a consensus about an element of your website that needs to be reworked, you’ve struck focus group gold. If each member of the group independently has the same hang-up, you know it’s time to patch up that part of the site and that doing so will make your site more user-friendly.

And focus groups are especially good at coming up with constructive criticism about names of pages and names and locations of navigation buttons. If you can get some advice from your group about these elements, your group has done its job.

…But Some of the Things Aren’t So Good

Sometimes focus group participants get a little carried away. If you’ve got a really outspoken crew with a variety of opinions, you can end up with conflicting information that just confuses things. It’s quite possible that five focus group members could have five different opinions about what should be highlighted on the homepage of a site, and following all the advice would result in a page with too much clutter. Nothing kills a design faster than “Design by Committee,” and a focus group could generate a bunch of ideas that you’ll need to wade through.

So does it make sense to run a new website past a focus group? Sure. I just don’t recommend taking all of the advice given and running with it. It’s cool to listen to and consider a variety of ideas as long as you just go forward with the best ones.

And who should you invite to participate in the focus group? I like this crew (although Binky’s going to need to watch his mouth.)

I’m hungry. Let’s talk about restaurants.

Everyone likes going out to eat. And when we go to restaurants, we tend to have certain expectations about how the experience will play out. We assume, for instance, that there will be a menu. And that there will be an opportunity to place an order. And that after we’ve ordered, someone will cook the food for us and serve us. It’s not lack of creativity that makes most restaurants follow these norms; they are rules that work, and restaurant patrons are most comfortable when this pattern is followed.

If you entered an unfamiliar restaurant and discovered that it did not have a menu, for instance, chances are good that you’d feel a little uneasy. All legitimate restaurants you’ve been to before have had menus, so you’d be likely to question what type of establishment you had entered. And even if you got to order whatever you wanted and the food was delicious and you enjoyed your experience, you’d probably leave there thinking, Well, that was kind of weird.

Following the Unwritten Rules

This idea applies just as well to web design.  When we enter a new website, there are certain patterns we expect it to follow. For example, we expect that the elements that will help us navigate from page to page will be located on the top or side of the screen. There’s no reason why a web designer couldn’t make a diagonal row of navigation buttons that extends from one corner of the page to the other. But instead, web designers stick to the unwritten rules of web design because they want to follow their audience’s expectations and help them stay comfortable as they browse.

So while IntelliSites is on the cutting edge of creativity when it comes to web design, don’t worry, we do believe in keeping some things conventional. We realize that meeting your audience’s expectations helps you to earn their trust, and we want people to leave your website thinking happy thoughts about your company rather than thinking, Huh?

All right. It’s really time to eat.  I’m off to a regular, restaurantly restaurant with a menu, a cook, plenty of food, and no surprises.

I overheard some people talking about “Hick’s Law” at a party the other day. (I really must stop attending such WILD social functions.) Anyway, sounds like the gist of Hick’s Law is the idea that it takes people more time to make a decision when there are many options to pick from. In other words, it takes much longer to decide between three options than it does to decide between two, and it takes significantly longer to decide between four options than it does to decide between three. And so on and so forth, until apparently it levels off. (At that point in the conversation, people started talking about logarithms, so I made a beeline for the buffet.)

Using This Idea for Web Design

Although they may not know that this idea is called Hick’s Law, good web designers take this concept into consideration every time they design a website. As a business owner, you don’t want people to come to your page and stare at it blankly while they try to decide where to click.  You want those visitors to explore, interact with your page, and stay interested. In order to make this happen, good web designers don’t crowd your page with a boat load of options; they keep it simple and easy to navigate.

Even complex websites that do involve lots of options tend to make the decision process easier by organizing the choices. It’s rare to visit a website and see fifty links right on the front page.  Instead, a website that has fifty pages to offer tends to organize these choices into categories and present them in drop-down menus. This breaks the decision making into smaller chunks and avoids wasting the website visitors’ time.

So Keep It Simple, Got It?

So there you go. I’ve been a fan of dynamic yet straightforward websites for years, and now I’ve got a law backing me up.  Get rid of clutter and unnecessary choices, and your customers will find your website easy to use and fun to visit. (Much more fun than, say, that party.)

It has been said that “the proper limit of trust is prudence, not fear.”  And we agree.  You see, we’re experts in web design, and we rely on our clients’ trust to deliver great products.  But sometimes, clients get a little bit nervous because they feel that their end product will be out of their control.

We know where they’re coming from.  It’s their business after all, and websites are important.

If you are one of those people who gets anxious about letting your web design team work its magic, take a deep breath.  We know what you’re going through, and we know how to help you get through.

It’s Just Like Getting a Haircut

Whether you are having your website designed or getting your hair done, an element of trust is absolutely necessary.

When you first sit down in the chair at the hairdresser or the barbershop, you get to talk to your hair stylist about your vision for the haircut.  But once the stylist gets started, you just sit back and trust that it will all come out right in the end.

And, if you’ve picked the right hairdresser, it will.

Now, during the process, there may be a few times when you get a little antsy in that hairdresser’s chair.  The haircut might start looking a little different than you initially anticipated, and you might be tempted to grab those scissors and try to finish up the hairdo yourself.  But, truthfully, as long as a competent hair stylist is in charge, you are probably better off to let him or her complete the job.  And chances are, you’ll be satisfied with the results — and much more so than you would have been if you had grabbed the razor yourself in the middle of the haircutting session.

In the same way, once we have a feel for what a client wants and needs from his or her website, sometimes it’s best to let us take it from there.  We don’t mind a little feedback here and there, just like your barber probably doesn’t mind a request like, “How about a little more off the top?”  But just like you wouldn’t grab your hairdresser’s hands and guide them to each strand of hair that needs to be cut, sometimes it’s a good idea to just let us do our thing.

After all, we have built over 600 websites for clients from all industries, and we haven’t built a dud yet!

Trusting a web design team, or a hairdresser, can be a little tough, but in both cases, it’s in your best interest to do so.  You want your website and your hair to be gorgeous, and both web designers and hairdressers have been trained to make their respective projects look great in the end.

A web design has a lot of jobs, and one of the most important jobs is to make you some dough.  Your chances of making this happen increase when a web design gets people delving further into the site, arriving at points where they can input their contact information, get a quote, or buy something. We talked a little about this before in previous articles

That means that in order for a design to work, your homepage has to hook your visitors.

Here’s How to Help Your Homepage Hook

If you don’t get your visitors involved right away, you may lose them, so you need to get them clicking deeper into your site.  You do this by focusing on their pain points, and then giving them the first step to a solution right on the homepage.

The problem they have, of course, will depend on the goods and services that you’re selling.  But the idea is to reveal a pain point for the visitor that will make him think, “Yes, that’s exactly how I feel!”

For example, if your business involves fixing cars, you could include copy that reads, “Are you sure that your car will keep your family safe as you drive this winter?”  Copy like that makes the website visitor stop and think, Wait, is my car safe for winter?  I think so, but I’m not a professional…Should I get it checked out?

Since people are bombarded with advertising messages like that, however, you do have to get your visitor to act right away before they move on to the next dilemma.  This can be accomplished by pairing this compelling copy with a call to action button that gets the person involved in addressing this problem immediately.  Keeping with the car example, something like, “Click here for information on our FREE 12-point winter car inspection” would work well.  Now that you’ve raised the issue, you’ve given the web surfer a way to start the process of solving the problem.

Take a little gander at your homepage.  Have you reminded casual visitors that they have a problem that you know how to solve?  Have you given them an easy way to get started with that process?