Decisions...Decisions

Applying the principals of user-centered design to your application or website is just another of those things you know you SHOULD do, but you don’t always make the time or spend any resources to do it.  You know what I’m talking about, oil changes every 3,000 miles, going to the gym, eating at home instead of going out to eat.  

These are the kinds of things that people with unlimited resources and loads of free time don’t really have to think about.  They don’t have to prioritize their day and scrutinize their budgets to include those things in their lives.

You SHOULD be able to think about how and why users will thoroughly embrace your app or site and come back time and time again, but that isn’t the most important thing on your list.  You have deadlines to manage and functionality to implement and test.  If things don’t work and they aren’t delivered on time, it won’t matter if it’s easy to use or easy on the eyes, right?  Well, yeah, if you want to be technical about it.  But what if it were possible to deliver the features on time AND have users stick around without requiring training and interaction with your support team?  Sound too good to be true?

It’s not really that far-fetched.  Just like most solutions, you just have to know where to look.  The need for the service that Site Blink provides is becoming more and more apparent to companies who want to set themselves apart from the pack.  As the user community has become more savvy, the bar has been raised, and companies have to deliver functionality on time and do it better than everyone else.

So the question becomes, can you afford to ignore the needs of your users when designing your app or site?

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More Than Just a Pretty Face

Even though you can survive eating candy and pretty pastries, your brain and body needs more sustenance to thrive and flourish.  The same can be said for the interface needs of your customers.  Flashy graphics and a cool logo only go so far.  At some point, your website or application needs meaningful content and thoughtful design to help your customers get the job done.

Nothing turns people off more quickly than misspelled words, bad grammar, or confusing directions.  When this happens, you lose the trust of your audience.  If you cannot even get those things right, how could anything else be accurate?

Regardless of the size of your company, you probably have a few people who are confident enough to proofread and edit the content in a website or application.  When deadlines loom and code reviews monopolize calendars, the last thing on the collective mind is whether the directions and field labels on a particular page are accurate and concise.   

How do you get around this?  You can either hire dedicated resources to handle this part of the development process or contract the work out to someone else.  If your company had the resources to hire everyone you needed, you probably would already have on staff a Human Factors Engineer, a Content Specialist, and a User Interface Designer, right?  So, that leaves you with the option of handing off these tasks to someone else.

Finding that someone could be a bit daunting.  Site Blink is that someone.  You tell us how much help you need, and we will figure out how to best help you create the sustenance your customers need while building and retaining their trust.  It is a tall order but one that Site Blink is confident in helping you fill.


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