Design by Goals
I fervently believe, and history has born this belief out, that understanding the goals of a website is the single most critical factor in the success of any design project. This is a fundamental tenet of my approach to website evolution.
When I am working on a project I first strive to get a clear picture of your true purpose, understand the key goals of your target users and start to visualize a high-value solution that ensures everybody achieves their goals.
Every web site is built in response to many disparate needs
Fundamentally, the web is an information medium. People publish stuff in response to a need for information. Your site may have information that people want, you may have information that you want or need them to have, or you may want to get information for them. Your site may be a way to pass information between different consumers. Or it could be a combination all of these things at the same time.
It is critical to understand that every web site tries to meet multiple needs. The publisher must have a need which drives them to publish (to earn money, to gather information, to promote a brand). The site’s visitors must have a need (to buy a product or service, to succeed at their work, to be entertained, or to get needed information).
Behind all these needs are goals that drive our desires and behavior. It’s our goals that drive us to use web sites, to buy products and use services.
Pursuit of goals drives user behavior
People visit web sites because they want to achieve something, a certain state, usually having got something or having done something.
It’s your goals that influence whether you, as a web user, click on a particular link or take the time to look around a web page.
No-one goes on shopping sites for the fun of using the site’s interface. We do it to find bargains or to buy specific products. Those finds help us to feel a certain way (smart, fashionable, relaxed, excited). The site is simply a means to an end.
In order to have a truly effective site – no matter its purpose – the end user’s goals MUST be taken into account and a design created to meet those goals. If you meet those goals chances are very good that your – the publisher’s – goals will be met as well.
