Trains, Tickets, Toilets...Tell Your Customers Where To Go

Your customers don't speak your language, they don't know what you do, they don't know if they should stay there – or if they want to come back. Make your message/sign clear. When you go to Google, do you read a sentence saying: "It's really easy and quick to search using Google." No you don't. And the reason is that it IS really easy to search using Google. It's so easy that you hardly have to think about it. There's a big search box in the center of the screen. That's easy. And if you have a good experience, you will come back again and again…and perhaps poke around and discover other things. Links were invented so that we wouldn't have to say things like "on our website you will find ..." So don't tell people about what they'll find, link to it! Don't have your website become a bore on a bar stool, extolling to his half-empty whiskey glass about all the things he's going to do for you. Nobody wants to read about your five year plan. Your website is a place for implementing that plan. Nobody wants to hear that you've just launched a new website, or that you've figured out how to do podcasting or videos. I know how much effort goes into all these things. I know how excited the web team can get about all the shiny, new features (remember page counters?). I know how are it is to have a balanced message. I know how hard it is to resist boasting about all that investment. Nobody cares (except maybe your mother). Strip it all away and let people do what they need to do. When committing to customer-centric development (of a product, service, website, or whatever), it's important to stay strategic, always try to improve the business, and listen to customers (as human beings, not as users of a tool). How to do this? Ideal: -Conducting real research is one of the surest paths to a successful web site Practical: 1. Interview customers, stakeholders and advisors to share opinions Don’t fake your research by creating “fake personas” (like soccer mom, and The Teen)…do the hard work of talking to customers and understand their feelings around your offering as well as the pain you can help alleviate 2. Prioritize your findings against your business strategy the conclusion of usability reports or stakeholder reviews usually goes something like this: "We uncovered 52 opportunities for change on the site, and here's the list." Take these results and focus on the most important two or three strategic findings - the ones that will really move the needle on key business metrics. 3. Always revisit the bigger picture If you want to have an impact, then conduct the work in the light of business objectives: increasing revenue, or cutting costs, or improving usage or conversion rates or pageviews or something that helps pay the bills. 4. Make it easy for people Stated more precisely, the easier you make it for customers to achieve their goal, the more customers will try your services. 2008-07-18T17:12:43Z

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trains-tickets-toiletstell-your-customers-where-to-go

2008-07-18T17:56:02Z

When we travel to places where we don't speak the language, we tend to look for the basics. Typically, we focus on:TRAINS --> TOILETS --> TICKETSWhen customers visit your web site, it's like visiting a foreign land (for them).

Trains, Tickets, Toilets...Tell Your Customers Where To Go

2008-07-18T17:56:02Z