The end of 2014 was really busy. My wife just had a fairly serious surgery (she’s doing great, but recovery takes time), and I am launching a eBook. So of course it should be evident this was the ideal time to redesign the user interface on my company’s website!
If you have ever suffered through this process, then you know that having this many balls in the air and taking on a website redesign is bordering on mad. The truth, however, was I couldn’t afford to put it off any longer. The time had come to improve my digital experience for the company.
In one of my quiet(er) moments, I contemplated why I felt the urgency to redesign the site, even though the timing was less than ideal. Not surprisingly, I discovered the reasons were related to my Customer’s Experience. While there are many specific goals for my user experience, they tended to fall under three main areas:
- The old site was no longer easy to use. I’d had my site for a long time. Too long in fact. We had updated sections and added to it over the years, like you would renovate an old farmhouse. The problem was that like an old farmhouse, it wasn’t optimized to today’s standards. It became a clumsy, lumbering version of the original. Most of the convoluted natures of the site stayed behind the scenes, but over time, navigation suffered on the User Experience side. It was getting harder to find information easily, with too many clicks to get where you wanted. That sealed it. The time had come to for a full teardown of the “old farmhouse” user interface to rebuild.
- The old site was not sending the right message in the first three to five-seconds. Most experts say that you make an impression on your User (Customer) in three to five-seconds. I tried to take an outside-in look at my website, to see it through the Customer’s eyes. When I did that, it was clear to me the message I sent was not the message I intended, unless outdated and hard to navigate were my intentions (they weren’t).
- My site needed to adapt to the new standard for websites that Customer’s demand. When I originally built my website, mobile interface was not a concern. Today, however, it’s critical. Today’s User (Customer) spends most of their time looking at sites on their mobile device. More specifically, their phone. While screens on smartphones are getting bigger, they still aren’t the sprawling screens of a desktop or a laptop computer. Any site today needs to be optimized for use with mobile to meet the user interface expectations of today’s Customers.
We always tell our client that having a great Customer Experience is a journey, not a destination. That’s because the standard for what makes a great Customer Experience is always changing along with the expectations of your Customers. The same idea applies for the other parts of your Customer Experience, like your website. My old User experience was great when it was first launched, but the demands and standards for what makes a great user interface have changed. It was time to meet those changing demands for my Digital Customer Experience.
Please share any thoughts below on what you like or dislike about our new website will be gratefully received. We are always looking to improve…
“Unlocking the Hidden Customer Experience: Short Stories of Remarkable Practices that Ensure Success” is designed to help organizations take their Customer Experience to the next level. Celebrating the launch of this new eBook, I am hosting a LIVE webinar focusing on what it takes to evoke the best emotions from your Customer Experience and the vital role of the conscious and subconscious experience with real-world examples. Read more about the book and register for the webinar, here.
All attendees will receive a discount code for 50% off the eBook.
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Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four best-selling books and an engaging keynote speaker.
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX