“What does that even mean?”
“We help you define what you actually need, then build exactly that.”
“Sounds easy.”
“It’s simple; not easy.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The Panama Canal.”
“Excuse me?”
“The idea for the Panama Canal was SIMPLE: Dig a canal between North & South America.”
“Because it’s shorter.”
“and it beats the hell out of sailing around Cape Horn.”
“Simple enough.”
“After 8 years, $287 million, and 22,000 worker deaths, the French finally failed in 1894.”
“Of course they did.”
“It would be 15 years before the US restarted the project and another 10 years to complete it.”
“Whoa, okay. NOT EASY.
I’m sorry about teasing the French.”
“No you’re not.”
“You’re right.
But I get what you mean about simple vs. easy.”
“Great. While your website isn’t the largest engineering project ever undertaken by humankind, it’s a substantial effort nonetheless.”
“So if I decide to hire you, what happens next?”
- Roadmapping
- Content Definition
- Content Creation
- Technical Teardown
- Design
- Implementation
- User Testing
- Launch
- Iterative Improvement
“I understand Roadmapping“
“Then we’ll dive right into Content Definition.”
“I can give you a list of everything we want to include on the site.”
“Great! We’ll light that on fire and douse it in the sink.”
“Excuse me?!”
“I’m just having fun with you. I haven’t lit anything on fire in the office recently.”
“Recently?”
“A story for another day. When we used to let clients include everything they wanted, the site turned into a cluttered, jumbled mess. Brick walls of text like ‘Welcome to our new website! We hope you enjoy your visit. Since 1969 our family business has been putting customers first…‘”
“Blah, blah, blah.”
“I saw you drooling on yourself already. After strategy, message is most important – long before technology or design.”
“So you tell me what goes on my site?”
“A bit, but mostly we figure it out together.”
“How?”
“That’s our secret sauce. But I’ll tell you this much: It comes down to saying what it takes to get a visitor to take action – and saying only that.”
“…if I’m not writing clearly and with a clear reason, I should probably stop writing.”
“Because they will certainly stop reading.”
“Okay. So now that we know the goals and what we’re going to say. Are we on to design?”
“Not yet. We only know what we need to say, not how we’re going to say it.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, when I was creating this website, I knew I needed a page about our Development Process, but I didn’t have it written. Content Definition is just understanding what you are going to write. Writing it is Content Creation”
“Got it. So I’m guessing the Technical Teardown is just figuring out what you will build, not actually building it?”
“Bingo. Up next: Design.”
“I thought you just poo-pooed design.”
“Absolutely not, but we do think that designing without content is foolish, and writing content without strategy likewise. That makes Design Step 6.”
“Do you think you might be making this too complicated?”
“The purpose of design is to best convey the content. To do that we have to have the actual content in-hand.”
“And if you don’t know the strategy behind why you’re saying it…”
“No shortcuts.”
“No joke.”
“After design is Implementation. That’s the part where we actually ‘build the website'”
“Finally!”
“After it’s built and you’ve had a chance to review it, we’ll need to show it to some ‘real’ people. The fancy name is ‘User Testing’ or ‘Usability Testing'”
“To make sure it all works?”
“Yes, but not just technically. We need to see if regular users interact with the site the way we expect – and if we forgot anything critical.”
“C’mon, after all that process?”
“You bet. Let me tell you a story. We built the store for MouseRugs.”
“Are those the goofy mouse pads that look like tiny oriental rugs?”
“Yup. We built their store on WooCommerce. We were really happy with it. They were really happy with it. We had launch scheduled, but first we sent it out to three groups of three people.”
“Uh huh…”
“Three tech nerds who would try to break the site. Three friends we considered ‘regular folks’. And our Moms.”
“Aww, that’s cute!”
“We asked each of them to go to the site, put two items in their cart, and then checkout.”
“You wouldn’t be telling me this if there wasn’t a catch.”
“Our Moms found the critical problem.”
“What was it? Wait – the nerds didn’t find it?”
“Nope, the nerds tried to break the site and failed. The ‘regular folks’ did exactly what we asked and the site worked great.”
“Are your Moms are technologically challenged?”
“Well, sometimes. But not this time. They were so tickled by the Mouse Rugs, they added two to their cart and then kept shopping”
“Yeah…”
“Then they coudn’t figure out how to get back to their cart and the checkout process.”
“So they were technically challenged!”
“Nope. We had neglected to include a site-wide cart icon.”
“No way.”
“Yup.”
“So how did everyone else do it?”
“When you added a product to your cart, it prompted you to view the cart. Add to Cart. View Cart. Checkout.”
“But your Moms kept shopping…”
“Yup. And that’s a good thing. We missed it. The client missed it. It wasn’t on any of our checklists.”
“I bet it is now.”
“It sure is.”
“So did you delay launch?”
“Nah, adding a site-wide cart icon took less than 15 minutes. But if we had let it go live without it…”
“You’d be screwed.”
“The client would be screwed. And we think that’s worse.”
“Alright, I get why User Testing is valuable. Are we ready to launch the site?”
“Yes!”
“Woohoo!”
“But we’re not done. 80% of design updates lead to a decrease in conversions.”
“What??”
“That’s the trouble. Put all the smartest people in a room and they will still struggle to anticipate how real users will interact with what they’re designing.”
“But we did User Testing.”
“Sure, and that’s a great first step. But, now we can analyze real users’ behavior and make changes. We call it Iterative Improvement. It’s just a fancy way of saying, make it a little bit better, a little bit at a time.”
“Like adding the cart icon.”
“Little changes can make a big difference when that’s all that’s left.”
“Hence the whole process.”
“You got it. That’s the whole thing.”
“Thanks, I may have bumbled a bit through your wacky approach, but I’m not dumb.”
“You’re sure not. That’s why I’m talking to you.”
“Well, thanks. I thought I knew what I needed, but it sounds like maybe I’ve just been swallowing what sales guys have been spoon feeding me.”
“No shame in that. I’ve been pitched. Swallowed it hook, line, and sinker too. How do you think I learned all this?”
“Mistakes?”
“You bet. The only thing you can truly call your own.”