Give Users what they want

Sunday, 11 October 2009 12:10

We follow Gerry McGovern and pretty much subscribe to his recommendations and views.

In a recent post, he starts with a statement that we wholeheartedly endorse:

Success on the web is not about making customers do what you want. It is about helping customers do what they want.

It sounds simple and logical, but over the years clients have suggested some things that have nothing to do with customers or making it easy for them to do what they want. Some are so crazy that it's easy to talk them out of it but others are more difficult. Here are some common ones:

• Can you add a link to my friend/collegue/son/wife etc's website. This seems innocent enough, but if the site to be linked to has no relevance to the client site, then it becomes difficult to find a place to put the link that looks natural. It is in no way motivated by making the user's life easier or to help them complete the task at hand. It often motivated by innocent (or not so) attempts by the requestor to help their SEO efforts. It is not helped by SEO experts recommending that people try and get as many backlinks as they can which leads to these sorts of requests being made to anyone a site owner knows. We'll ususally try and find a non-intrusive way of doing this for clients because the debate can be lengthy and seem pedantic, although we'll try to decline at least once.
• Content full of fluff, spin or other messages designed to persuade, entice or otherwise sell your product. The users are generally there because they believe you have something they want or need. Tell them what you can do for them truthfully and make it easy for them to get it done. Users don't blindly believe what an organisation tells them on a website. You have to demonstrate that you're there to help them and a website that makes it easy to do business with you is good way to do that. Unfortunately marketing people who advise clients that they need to do have 'powerful persuasive content' are often very good at selling their view point to which is why this can be a tough one to resolve.
• Images that look nice but add no value whatsover. There is a place for imagery to enhance the visual appeal and response to a site. But they should support the brand and whatever message you want to send. Even worse if the image is a stock image acquired as a freebie from somewhere.
• Images that don't look nice. Grainy. Poor focus and poor composition. Nothing degrades a site faster than poor imagery. Particularly if it's an ego shot - ie one that the site owner wants there because they think it's important or a nice shot or it's one of them.
• Background music. Don't ever do this. It's annoying and irrelevant. Unless your business is about music or jingles or something similar it does not enhance the mood.

Sometimes things on a site contribute to intangibles like portraying a professional image to builds trust, but a good test for any content is to ask 'what does this do to help the user acheive their task?. If the answer is nothing then there's a good chance you shouldn't do it.