Nonprofit Expressions

After re-envisioning our website and our branding, testing out some Ajax methods for organizing and displaying information, we have decided to show some of them off on the website!

Ajax is an important new technology on the Web because it significantly improves the user experience. An example of this would be the revolutionary mapping software now in wide use, Google Maps.

More Ajax-based web applications are in development and use all the time. The transition the Web has been making to a more user-friendly and intuitive environment is probably unnoticed by many web surfers, and this is ideal. The average web surfer probably just knows that the web is becoming easier to use, even though they may not know exactly how or why.

The improved version of many websites that is transforming the World Wide Web is being termed “Web 2.0.”

This change is not insignificant, and Ajax is not just a new bell or whistle. Improving the experience people have on your website is very important and should be considered by all serious site owners. This brings us to the website owner topic of the day, user experience.

The user experience is not trivial or technical mumbo jumbo. It is really just the type of experience a person has while visiting your website. How would people describe their recent visit to your website? Would they say it was easy to use, they found the information quickly and the pages were attractive? Did it remind them of other websites they like or was it the worst web experience of the day?

The truth is most websites would fall into the frustrating category. This is simply because the best sites on the web today are intuitive, well thought out by their creators and adequately researched. As a developer myself I know many clients would be happy to cut some meat out of the website budget by eliminating “user testing” and “visitor research”. While these are often expensive parts of the puzzle, they can also be the most important steps to creating a website people will enjoy visiting.

In reality all websites that are very successful (Digg.com, Facebook.com, Google.com) spend hundreds of man hours making sure people can understand how to use their websites and developing ways to present information in a pleasant manner.

Finding out if it is time for a re-design is easy if you only follow these two steps:

1. Find a person who does not work for you or your organization/business/church. (You need a truly unbiased perspective)

2. Watch the unbiased person use your current website. Ask him/her to complete a few pre-defined tasks, such as finding a piece of information or looking for a specific page. Then do not give them any advice about how to do that. Offer NO HELP! Just sit and watch (and bite your tongue).

This exercise should tell you whether or not your website is easy to use.

If your tester struggles or seems confused, it is time to re-think your website!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under General, Improving your website, Newsletter, Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.