In this lesson I will break down this critical web design task of User Experience into a method that you can easily install no matter what business or niche you serve.
Have you ever worked on a project that was well planned, and created a user flow diagram or use case documentation, BEFORE you jumped into designing and building a website?
If not then you are probably wondering how UX works, and what you should plan...
Let’s start with a short list:
- Start by defining your navigation
- Next, take inventory of the tasks that your users may perform...
- And third begin to prioritize the paths, sequences, and destinations that your users will take.
This probably means that you will need to collaborate on decisions such as:
- Who the stakeholders are in the project
- Why this project even exists
- Who the target users will be
- What kind of promises you will fulfill
- What the competitive landscape looks like…
- And what will the business objectives be?
You will also need to define what kind of requirements the project will have… such as...
- Content pages, categories and tags,
- What kind of visuals,
- videos, photos, or other rich media.
- Flowcharts and diagrams.
- And context such as keywords, and meta information.
And of course, creative web strategies like:
- How you will market your content
- Or get found with SEO and SEM
- Sourcing the traffic you will need…
- How you will appeal to mobile users
- How you will follow up
- How you will solicit visitor feedback
- How you will accept and collect money.
- How you will manage website content updates
You will also need to define timelines, budgets, and roles...
- How much time will you dedicate
- How much budget for design
- How much budget for programming
- How much budget for promotion
- How you will maintain the website
- How often will you create backups
Who will do what tasks to complete the project:
- Research,
- Discovery,
- Planning,
- Design,
- Development,
- Project management,
- What tools or resources are needed…
And a lot more!
I know that this sounds like a fairly extensive list, but this can be just the beginning and notice how I still didn’t even mention visual design...
Check for some links to a few important planning documents...
- Website Project Objectives Workbook
- Branding Workshop Questionnaire
- Website Features & Functionality Checklist
Feel free to download these and begin thinking of your answers to the questions.
The take away from these lessons is that planning is a critical.
Still wondering what are some of the best ways to plan your website and User Experience (UX)?
Well… assuming that you already have completed some market research and user personas to profile your ideal customer...
Keep things simple!
One way that I like to start my project plans is by sketching out basic sitemaps or user flows, and wireframes using just a simple pad of paper and pencil.
Sitemaps help us define our navigation and content requirements, and "Wireframing" basically lays out what a person will see on each web page, and what options that user has while they are there.
Remember, "pretty" does not necessarily mean that your website is going to convert visitors into sales or users.
At this stage we are looking to define every "next step" that a visitor should take, so you will probably also want to start creating some action lists and even flow charts...
For example, once visitors are on your home page, where do they go from there?
This is why we create a customer journey...
For example, if list building and lead generation are your primary focus for anyone visiting your website, you will need to map out what happens before and after you capture contact information...
Start thinking of each and every step in your conversion process, and how in the long term visitors will come back to your site or be educated on the value of your content.
To accomplish this we have access to methods and tools such as:
- User Personas
- Card Sorting
- Story Boarding
- Content Inventory Trackers
- Site Map Diagrams
- Flowcharts...
- HTML Wireframes
- Plain Text Editors
- Powerpoint Slides
- And Web Style Guides
That is just to name a few tools used in a planning process, but if you reach out and let me know where you are in your projects I can probably recommend something specific for you.
