"The graphics weren't well done, the organization wasn't clear, the information wasn't concise," says President Bob Gavinsky, a former airline pilot. "Visitors mentioned it to us, diplomatically, so we went out and found someone who could do the job."
The result was a site where users could readily exchange information and easily access the company's hefty instruction manual. In addition, the online technical support led to a reduction in overhead.
Web sites are no longer experiments conducted for fun. They're a business tool, and they need to be effective in getting a company's message out, helping it make or save money, and promoting interaction with customers. What worked for your company a year ago may not be working now. We spoke with notable design firms and experienced companies to find out how to tell when a site needs a makeover and what to do about it.
This old adage has never been truer than on the Internet—you never get a second chance to make a first impression. With clicker-happy Web users hopping from page to page faster than an eyeblink, your company's site needs to impress the visitor right at the home page, and it needs to give an accurate impression.
Ask yourself, "Does our home page grab my attention? Are those bright purple and mauve icons reminiscent of our staid logo? Do those flashy graphics really tell people that we're a competent research firm? I see heavy text and no color; does that accurately reflect our place on the cutting edge of our industry?" If the answer to any of the above questions is no, then you've got some redesigning to do.
That's part of what tipped off Stoddard-Hamilton. In Figure 1, the shot before the site's makeover, the colors were bland and the site was difficult for many users to navigate. In Figure 2, the after shot, the lines are sharp, the colors are striking, and the visitor is left with the impression that Stoddard-Hamilton is in the forefront of its field. You can browse through the rest of the site at http://www.stoddard-hamilton.com/.
Once you've persuaded visitors to spend some time at your site, you need to make sure their experience is a pleasant one. A great deal of this will depend upon how much attention you pay to navigational features.
Consistency is the key. Consider how your favorite newspaper is laid out; you always know where to find the editorials, the business section, even Dear Abby and the comic strips. That's because the publication knows that you don't want to spend your time searching for the information you want; you'd rather be able to put your finger on it immediately.
The same principle applies to Web sites. Look at how your users make their way through the pages. If you use a frame on the left side of your home page with a table of contents, keep that frame in place on every page. If your links to other sections are icons at the top of the page, keep them there on every page.
A site that's easy to navigate also is one that has the most important information most prominently displayed. Say, for example, your company builds one kind of widget. Your home page doesn't need to center around only that one product. The bulk of your home page could consist of links to news releases, company events, special features of the widget, and more.
Business sites have primarily one purpose—to inform. Entertainment comes second. Remember that a visitor goes to your site for its content.
"New users tend to be wowable, but after a few days that changes into 'Ho hum, where's the beef?' " says Sandi Daine, owner of Bluebird Web Publishing (now Daine Designs). "When the glitz and the glitter get in the way, the user won't come back."
For many businesses that started out on the Web months ago, putting up a site meant turning over the project to a designer who wanted to impress the company with the "cool" things that could be done on the Web. If your site has been up for a while without a redesign, take a hard look at what it conveys to the user. If it is more fancy downloads and browser plug-ins and less useful facts and quality information, it's probably time to scrap the gadgets.
For starters, make sure all of the necessary contact information is online. Daine tells of an ISP site that didn't contain the company's phone number—a major oversight. Also, pay attention to what you title the inside pages. A user may bookmark other than the home page, and you want that page to be titled something recognizable.
Watch Those Users
Navigation and content are two of the most important factors in how visitors make their way through your site, but they aren't the only two. Sometimes what may seem to you a minor detail will completely confound a user, and the only way you'll be able to tell will be via observation.
Mainspring Communications Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., firm that helps businesses build Internet and intranet presences, found this out by setting up some usability testings for its own site. During eight months, the company conducted three usability studies consisting of 10 people each. Mainspring brought in an outside consultant who was familiar with the site to introduce it to the users and, rather than guiding the users, the consultant let them explore their way one at a time. The sessions were videotaped, and Mainspring staffers paid attention to what the users were saying and doing.
"Watching how people interact is invaluable, watching what they see or don't see," advises Design Manager Dina Kestenbaum. "We had a big black with white text banner, one inch by six or eight inches across, and the user never saw it. They'd say they wanted that feature, but they just didn't see it. There's no way to ever figure that out without watching them."
Graphical Overload
Another factor to consider in determining whether your site needs an overhaul is the speed at which it loads. You may have an eye-catching home page, fantastic content, and an easy-to-navigate system, but if your pages take too long to download, visitors may never come back.
"Look at your site at a time of day when the Web isn't swamped, in the early morning when the traffic is light, and restrict yourself to a 28.8 modem" recommends Crady von Pawlak, president of CvP Photography and Design, http://www.visualflux.com. "If the server is good and the page loads slowly, it's a problem with the graphics. There are either too many or they're too big."
To fix this problem, von Pawlak suggests you limit yourself to 60KB or less per page, and if you have larger graphics, say 12KB to 20KB each, break them up. Cut them in half so you speed the process by loading two images instead of one.
Another tip von Pawlak gives is to make sure you've included the dimensions of the image in the tag. If the page doesn't have that information, it must start to load the image before it can load anything else. With the dimensions in the tag, the page knows how much to set aside for a particular graphic and it can start loading the text. The user will have something to look at while waiting for the entire page to appear.
Bugs, Garbage & Maintenance
You may have followed all of the above procedures correctly when you put your site up six months ago, but that doesn't mean it's working properly today.
Does your site have bad links? Do users link to updated content, or are they encountering an earlier version of the page? Does your site have garbage characters strewn on some of its pages? If you use an automated program to do the HTML, it may encounter something it isn't familiar with and return odd characters. Be sure to test for this regularly by either manually going through the site or using a program that automatically checks all links on your site.
If your inclination is to test this manually, then you should take a look at staff time spent on maintenance. Over The Net, http://www.otn.com, a Web design firm in Camarillo, Calif., suggests you ask yourself or your employees if routine tasks are taking up an inordinate amount of time. For example, a common mistake is directing all of the E-mail from the Web site to one person, who wastes time redirecting it. A quick fix will save you effort over the long haul.
Changing Product Or Service
Another item that may have changed since you last altered your site is your company's business. Because of the immediacy of the Internet—it takes mere minutes to change a piece of information on your Web site such as the cost of the item—users expect that what they see will be up to date.
If your company manufactures widgets for consumers, but you're moving into manufacturing widgets for corporations, don't let your public Web site be the last to know. While this sounds obvious, it's surprising how many companies overlook it.
Scalability
Keep in mind that the Web site is a publishing medium and, like other media, one of your goals should be to retain your brand identity. If your site is non-scalable, change it now so it will be scalable in
the future, rather than hanging on to an outdated design.
"Every 10 or 15 years, Time magazine does a minor redesign of the magazine, and when you're walking in an airport and you see it from a distance, you still recognize it," says Daniel Marovitz, Web technology manager, Internet and intranet, for a large computer manufacturer. "The goal of a Web site should be just that. It should allow you to change things all the time without changing the framework."
For instance, if you use buttons to guide your users to sections of your site, consider what you will do if you create additional sections; will your user be overwhelmed by the choices? If you have a tour of your product online, can you add other tours for future products? These are just a few of the questions to consider.
The Bottom Line
While design, content, navigability, first impressions, and good maintenance are all important, if you're on the Web to do business, your site needs to either make money or save money, directly or indirectly. If it doesn't, a makeover probably is in order.
Has your site made you money? If the only money connected to your site is what you put into it, you have a problem. If you're selling a product or service over the Internet, find out whether your site is generating sales, either directly (via an online ordering form, for instance) or indirectly by bringing your product or service to the attention of your customer.
Is your site saving you money? If you have an online help desk, compare how much you are spending on it and on your "real-life" help to how much you were spending prior to implementing it. If your site is an intranet, determine whether the effort you put into placing human resource manuals, benefits information, payroll data, and other documents and files on your intranet is less expensive than doing it on paper.
Listen To Users
Above all, don't try to do everything yourself. A Web site makeover involves input from a variety of people, from the CEO to the receptionist, from the steady customer to the infrequent one.
Encourage feedback at all levels. Place feedback forms on your company's Web site. Send out weekly E-mails to customers. Place a notice on your site asking users to select to receive updates on particular topics, and when you're considering a change in your online multimedia presentations, for instance, you can query just those users.
And, you can even do it the old-fashioned way—talk to your co-workers, your bosses, and anyone else who uses the site. You just might be surprised by what you learn.
—Heidi Anderson
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