The Primary Requirement for Site Owner is to Understand the Users' Goals

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The Primary Requirement for Site Owner is to Understand the Users' Goals

Posted in Website Design Tips	June 12, 2006

Permalink: http://daily.mequoda.com/i//website_design_tips/encouraging_next_step_effective_task_completion_180-1.html

By Kim Mateus, Managing Editor Mequoda Daily and Library

The primary requirement for a site owner is to understand the site's overall goal, the important tasks the user expects to complete on the site, and the ease and urgency with which that can be accomplished satisfactorily. Most users are not going to just browse around a site—they want to get in, do what they need to do and get out.

A user commonly will want to complete just five or six tasks on a website and those tasks account for 80 percent of online activity. Browsing and searching are common to all types of websites, but other tasks—finding an article, signing up for a email newsletter, buying a product, checking on an order, changing a profile, submitting information... whatever—are different for the various website archetypes.

For example:

Content sites-the top task is to get more detail on a news headline.
Commerce sites-the user is most often trying to complete a purchase.
Retail websites-users are increasingly seeking to take care of customer service tasks at the website, such as canceling or returning an order or reporting a problem with delivery.

Mequoda researchers have found that users often will complete a task in an unanticipated way. And when that happens, it's good. It means that the global architecture of the site provides multiple paths to the finish line.

Mequoda Library Members Only: If you're a Mequoda Library member, reference Don and Jane's entire chapter, Website Design Guideline #6: Encouraging the Next Step with Effective Task Completion. Or check the full Table of Contents for Website Design for Publishers and Authors.

If you're not a Mequoda Library member, and are interested in accessing the full text of this chapter along with 434 other chapters, start your 14-day FREE trial.

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COMMENTS

So then what is the better method. To try to force your visitors to do the things YOU want them to, or allow them to do the things they are currently doing easier. On our publication site http://www.motherearthnews.com our goal is to get users to either subscribe to our publication or our newsletter. What our users typically do is come onto our website, read one article, and leave. So what is the easier way to catch them? Put more articles that they may want to read front and center or to try to quickly convert them to either a sub or newsletter?

Comment by: Chris E | June 12, 2006

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