FRONT - A Strategy, Design and Technology Studio

If you’re going to renovate, create a space that solves problems and performs, not one that’s pretty but pointless

Imagine your neighbour has just completed a brand new conservatory with floor to ceiling glass and dozens of bright, cheerful blooms and foliage. It’s a haven for soaking up the rays each weekend. You gaze at the finished article admiringly and your green-eyed monster inside says: I want one too!

A few months later and you’ve parted with your money and stand before your very own glass, floral-filled wonder. Then you suddenly remember that too much sun gives you a headache, you burn really easily and you’re allergic to flowers. It’s then that you realise that what you should have done, instead, is build a workshop where you could organise your reams of hardware and DIY gadgets and wile your weekends away on your beloved repair projects.

What went wrong? You built blind – blind to why you needed more space and blind to how much use you’d get from it.

Of course this is just illustrative. Nobody would endure the cost and inconvenience of a home extension unless it either improved their lifestyle or property’s value. But surprisingly, many organisations do just that with their website development – so eager to see the final, glossy product or achieve a perceived parity with their competitors’ sites that they forget to pause and work out its purpose and value.

Investing Wisely

A website is property too. It’s one that can make a fundamental difference to your organisation, and so you should treat a web project just like any other business project.

Building a website isn’t enough; you want a website that works for you – one that sweats, toils and earns its keep. This requires forethought, reflection and analysis.  A site that works is one that:

• helps your audience achieve their goals; and in doing so
• delivers a return on your investment. 

If you’re finding it difficult to say how your ideas for your website contribute to your goals, instead of making a wish-list of features, think about these questions:

• Why do you need these things?  How will each idea benefit your organisation?
• Who will use this content or functionality?  If you were explaining to that person why they should use your website, what would you say?
• If you were reporting to colleagues on the success of your web project, what story would you like to be able to tell?  What questions would they ask?  What measures would you use to show the impact your website has had?

Working through and justifying your plans in these ways will keep your focus on the business of your site, rather than merely the building trends around you, and provide both you and your customers with a space that gets used and works hard.