Do visitors really care about your website?

The answer is No.

And believing that people care about you and your web site is the number one website design mistake per Flander’s Biggest Mistakes in Web Design.

What do you think? Is he right?

I do tend to agree with him.

Over the last few weeks as I prepared to get back to writing again, I spent time cleaning up a few things around the website. Not only did I clean things up, I fretted, I worried, I got upset when the darn CSS would not behave. But was that all necessary????

Flanders offer the following essential advice on changing our thinking about web design.

1. The only reason my web site exists is to solve my customers’ problems.
2. What problems does the page I’m looking at solve?

The first should be a mantra we speak to ourselves daily. The second is a question we should ask every time I right a post or update a page.

As a web developer, take off your developer hat and put on your website user hat. Don’t forget that. You are a website user. Your visit and search for websites a good portion of your day. What frustrates you as a website user?

For me, I get totally ticked when I can’t find the NECESSARY and ESSENTIAL information about a topic that SHOULD be addressed by the website I am looking at. Now, understand, this is not about high expectations. But if I visit a flooring site to choose new flooring for my home, should it not have something about installation??? Actually, having that information may have sealed the sale for me. If I can determine that installation was rather easy, the sale may have been just a few clicks away. But since I am left in the dark on installation, I am off looking at other products.

Now look at your own website. Heck, what about this post? What problem does this post solve?

Answer: it is aimed at turning a mindset around to think from a problem solving orientation towards web and content development rather than a pure, “boy that design is sure cool” orientation.

Flanders goes on to state that any website’s visitors have four essential problems:

1. They want/need information
2. They want/need to make a purchase / donation.
3. They want/need to be entertained.
4. They want/need to be part of a community.

Does your website/web page help solve one of them?