2 Girls Design Studios

Web Design Remix: Defining your website’s purpose

        Written by: Dee

Are you considering a full website redesign? For most website owners, this can be a daunting task, fraught with questions. Do you scrap everything and start from scratch? Maybe just make some slight changes to "freshen it up" a bit – a design "remix"? And, one of the most challenging questions may be: do we really need to hire someone to do this for us?

Over the past decade, we’ve assisted many website owners in the design and redesign process. Each one is a little different, and things have certainly changed since we started. But, there are some common things for you should consider before getting started.

What is the purpose of your website?

You know this – the purpose of your website should be clear and concise. The colors, the design, the flow – every element should be in synch with your brand. Your website should be the virtual expression of your purpose, and the virtual extension of your brand. Think of your website as a physical location, and you are well on your way to evaluating if it is serving its purpose. If you walk into a storee (or office), you instantly (if unconciously) make judgments about that business or person. Instead of thinking of a website strictly as a marketing tool, site owners who change their thinking on what their website represents set themselves up for greater success in the long term.

• Customer centric
  • When a "target" visitor arrives at your website, are they confused or do they instantly know what the purpose of the site is?
    • Color: If your website is about peacefulness, using red may not be a good choice – even if it’s your favorite color. Likewise, if your website’s purpose is to show off a high end line of products, flourescent orange may not be the best color choice.
    • Design elements: This is as crucial as the color. Does the *design* of your site reflect your brand? Does it convey, without a visitor every reading a word, visually, what your brand is? If not, it’s not working for you.
• Business centric
  • If you do not know what the purpose of your website is, you need to stop reading this right now and figure it out! Need some help? We would be happy to talk to you about your business and guide you toward understanding the purpose for your website. (We’ve never considered "Everyone else has one" as a purpose for a website!)

Looking through your customer’s eyes

It’s critically important to look at a potential site design through the eyes of your target visitor. Take a virtual tour of other websites in your field or that share a target visitor. That’s not to say *copy* these sites! But, as you visit different sites, you will be able to see common trends among them – maybe the navigation is in the same area or arranged in a similar way. Maybe all of them use baby blue (in that case, you may consider a "baby pink" or a color that isn’t the same but is in the same category).

Make your site as easy for a non-savvy person as possible – even if your customers are generally internet savvy. If you think your customers are likely to look at your site on their cell phone, make sure your site is available in a cell phone version. This does not require an entirely different website. It does, however, require that you employ designers or developers that can help make your site both computer and cell phone browser friendly.

Basically, channel your ideal customer and design the site accordingly. If you are hiring a designer, make sure that designer is familiar with designing sites that are geared towards your target market. You DON’T want someone who specializes in designing business to business (B2B) sites to design a business to consumer (B2C) site – it’s two very different markets….and the sites have different *functions*. The same is true for informational/service oriented websites versus product oriented websites – they have very different functions. Make sure your web designer or developer understands that there is a difference and can give you a website that is appropriate for the site’s purpose.

Next up: What type of website do you need & what do you need to look for?

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