Website Development:
Number One Skill For Managing A Website
Monday, June 06, 2005 - 07:32 PM
Having a deep understanding of the gut instinct of your customer is the number one skill of managing a website. That involves getting face to face with them.
Having a deep understanding of the gut instinct of your customer is the number one skill of managing a website. That involves getting face to face with them.
The web is a self-service environment, and self-service is about convenience, speed and price. When people are engaged in self-service they behave in a gut instinct manner. They behave without a lot of conscious or deliberate thought.
People read on the Web but they read like they're driving down a motorway. They are reading at high speed; they are reading by gut instinct. If you want to understand their behaviour-if you want to understand what makes them click-you need to observe.
That's because when people tell you what they want to do, or what they did do on a website, they are probably not being accurate. It's not that they are deliberately lying. It's more that what they think they did is usually not what they actually did.
That's why usability is such a powerful concept. It's about observation. It's about learning to design based upon what people actually do on your website, not what they say they do.
Some years ago I had a chat with a manager from McDonald's. They told me about how one day they were in their office, and the phone rang. It was a call from head office. The first question the manager got asked was why they were in the office.
Note: About the Author:
Gerry McGovern is a content management consultant, author and speaker. http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
