Think about Your Site Visitor's Needs in Web Design

by Ellen Foster
ellen.foster@webdesignschoolreview.com
Web Design School Review Columnist

As a web designer it’s easy to think of your web site organization in terms of what message you want to get across to your visitors. It can be more difficult, however, to think in the reverse: What do your site visitors want from your web design. Yet it’s essential to pose this question during the beginning stages of a design, when you’re determining your organizational framework.

If you can ask yourself what your visitor wants from your web design, you can dynamically combine this information with what you want to convey and find an arrangement that best meets the visitor’s needs. Flashy graphics may catch the visitor’s eye first, but it’s the organizational framework of your web design that will most affect his or her experience.

Web Designers: Ask What You Can Do for Your Site Visitor

If you think foremost about how your web design can facilitate meeting your visitor’s objectives, you’ll avoid some common mistakes. It can be tempting for businesses and organizations to focus their websites on their own needs rather than the needs of their customers. They might privilege information regarding the structure of their administrative organization—the kind of stuff about which the average site visitor cares little. To avoid this, you might communicate with your target audience. Ask them what information and services they most want to see and make it the heart of your web design.

Your Web Design Can Do it All

Once you’ve prioritized your objectives based on the needs of your site visitors and organized these objectives in a way that works congruently with your information structure, don’t forget to step back and (hopefully) admire the aesthetic success of your web design.

Source

Site Design

About the Author

Ellen Foster is a freelance writer and teacher. She has taught students aged five to forty-five.

Posted at 11:24 AM on March 6, 2007

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