THE STRATEGY OF A GOAL-ORIENTED WEB DESIGN

Web design is not governed solely by art – it is the collaboration of different skills from writing relevant and powerful content to designing an interface that is attractive, user-friendly, and accessible. The process of obtaining an effective website however, does not end here. In order to make the most out of the dynamics of these web design elements and obtain positive response from users - think strategically. Strategic design means that all aspects of the design must sync with your website objective.

In developing a website, it is essential that the interface design help accomplish the web mission. Unfortunately, there are many websites that manifest the best web design trends but do not succeed in presenting their organizational goals. As a result, they have the potential of catching the users’ attention but they are not capable of converting their visitors into customers – a prime characteristic of an ineffective website. While it is important to keep up with design trends and stay tuned with the latest techniques and styles, the priority should be intelligent and precise execution of such trends.

There are five major steps to remember in strategic design:
1.) Determine Your Web Purpose – Know your starting point. If you do not have a clear idea of your purpose, how do you expect to succeed? It is essential to establish your objectives before you start with the design process in order for your design team to avoid wasting time and effort on unnecessary modifications.

Different websites have different functions – to sell products, to publish information, to entertain, or to provide service. Such determined function should be integrated into the design. So if you are designing a website for an online furniture store - focus your design on strengthening the products’ imagery and sale-ability, and on directing clicks towards your shopping cart.

2.) Identify Your Target Users – When asked about your target audience, it is a misconception that the correct answer is everyone. It is imperative to know which audience group to prioritize while making your website accessible to all at the same time.

The target demographic would greatly influence the course of the design – age group, gender, profession, and technical knowledge. Children and teenagers are likely to pay more attention to the design aspect while professional and less technical knowledgeable adults would give more consideration to the usability. The intended audience would also play an important role even when it comes to the more minor aspects of your design like font types and sizes. This serves to emphasize the big role of your target users if you want every detail to be perfect.

3.) Emphasize Your Brand – Every website has a brand, whether you sell products and services, or not. A blog for example, might not have a brand per se but it still makes a particular impression on its visitors.
At this point, it is important to remember that the design must reflect the personality of the brand, your company, or the identity you want your website to have. Elements to branding include the company logo, color theme, consistent font selection, etc.

4.) Test the Performance of Your Design – This step is not negligible. Some web designers can be prone to biases. Because he knows how everything came together, it would be harder for him to step back and view the site as an outsider. The following are different ways to ensure the effectiveness of your website:

a.) Ask your peers for feedback. As much as possible, let your test audience form opinions independently. If you interfere and give them inside information beforehand, you are missing the point of the test. Once a substantial amount of viewers give you feedback, analyze them and look for common issues so you could fix them.

b.) Utilize free tools. Google Analytics is recommendable for people with low budgets who still want to gather relevant data about their website.

c.) Take advantage of social networking groups and advertise your site to a group of users that are closest to your target demographic. After that, track their visits and responses to test the effectiveness of your site.

5.) Be Open to Improvements – You have to keep working towards perfection. Just because you already fixed all the mistakes you found after the test process does not mean that you should stop brainstorming on how to make your site more effective than it already is. Of course, be

careful about how you implement such improvements. Do not implement major changes right away. Allow your viewers to adjust to the changes gradually.

It does not take an expert to understand and implement strategic design. Common sense with focus is all you need. When you build a website, you should know what you want to accomplish so the web mission could be seen in every aspect of your site. During the process, just be careful not to fall into the usual trap of getting distracted by the flashiest design trends and exploring every angle of your design decisions. The question you should always keep in mind is: “What are the best ways to utilize the website design in fulfilling the organization goals?”

References:
Strategic Web Design - The Basics
Your Web Site's Objective
Starting a Web Business: Your Website Objective
10 Harsh Truths About a Corporate Website
6 Steps For Building Successful Websites