When designing a Web site, there are industry standards available to create a site map, labeling and navigation. These are as common as street signs: “Solutions”, “Company”, “FAQ”, “About”, “Gallery”, “Checkout”, etc. As users, we have come to expect these standards in the same way we expect to find a produce section and a bread aisle in a grocery store.

Where it gets fuzzy for many designers and marketers is at the individual page level. Sure, you have your messaging and page layout grid, but how do you design the conversation between company and customer? Companies usually know what they want to talk about but struggle when it comes to how to talk about it.

The most common mistake is simply one of perspective. It’s a question of which design track you’re taking. For example, if the design is company-focused the result may be a conversation better used in a print brochure than on the Web. With a “brochure-site”, the power of the Web isn’t fully utilized or the user’s time considered. These conversations are usually text-heavy and don’t leverage common Web features. Maybe there’s even business jargon that few people, beyond the company’s walls understand.

Perhaps you’ve taken a technology-focused approach and have decided to offer users audio, video, forums, downloads, registration, etc. without realizing that users may not actually want or need all those features. In most cases, these features may even get in the way of fulfilling primary user needs.

Lastly, it could be that you’ve decided that having the best looking Web site is most important and so you’ve decided to focus on appearances and let the resident designer populate your pages with gratuitous animations and plenty of artistic expression that looks great, but lacks substance and misses your goals.

The problem with all these approaches is that they get in the way of having a conversation with your customers and none of them are centered around the their wants.

One way to test whether or not you’re having the right conversation is to create what Alan Cooper in his book, About Face describes as personas or individual profiles that represent visitors to your site. The best thing about personas is that they support the customer experience by humanizing what would otherwise be just features and functions.

According to author John Waters the concept is simple, “develop a precise description of the Web site visitor and what he or she wishes to accomplish. Then develop multiple scenarios through which the visitor experiences the site.” By doing this kind of exercise, you learn what user expectations there might be and how to address them. Most of all, you’ve put a face on the person you plan to have the conversation with. Throughout the design process, you can then go back to the personas to check whether or not their needs are being fulfilled.

To begin the conversation, let’s start with the homepage. It should communicate some basic positioning:

-    Type of business
-    Description of products/services
-    Who you do business with
-    Unique selling point
-    Benefit statement

This seems rudimentary but more often than not, businesses fail to communicate these points in a clear and comprehensible way. How many times do you go to a company’s homepage and actually understand what it is they do? The problem is especially prevalent among tech companies who have a hard time explaining in one sentence what they do. The visitor often doesn’t “get it” and either leaves the site or reluctantly navigates to the About page seeking further clues.

According to Steve Krug (of the “Don’t Make Me Think” fame), another way to look at the conversation on the homepage is by putting yourself in the user’s shoes and asking:

-    What is this?
-    What do they have here?
-    What can I do here?
-    Why should I be here (and not somewhere else)?
-    Where do I start?

Lesson: if all else fails, put yourself in the user’s shoes!

Sequential pages might need a different approach, although it’s not bad to combine the conversations since users don’t always land on the homepage first, especially if you receive a lot of traffic from search engines. When constructing the conversation for secondary pages you still need to consider questions like “What are my user’s desires, needs and motivations?” or ”What would they like to accomplish?”

Also take into consideration both new visitors and returning ones and ask yourself how will the pages introduce themselves to first-time visitors while accommodating return visitors seeking updates or additional information. Set a courteous tone and be a gracious host.

To make the conversation interesting the page elements should engage the user and contribute to an over-all compelling experience. Are the pages too static and offer too little? Is there a strong call to action or is the page a dead end to the conversation? You want to keep the conversation going.

Lastly, be authentic and original. As much as a Web site needs to sell, users don’t like to feel like they’re being sold to—users are looking for trust. Being original means staying away from the “me too” conversations that marketers often feel they must have in order to keep up with the competition. Differentiate. Stand out. As brand guru Marty Neumeier would say, when everybody zigs, zag!

Designing the right conversation is not easy no matter what your business is, but by keeping the customer always in mind and asking the right questions you can create a delightful and memorable experience.

Books Mentioned:

Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin
About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

Steve Krug
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

John Waters
The Real Business of Web Design

Marty Neumeier
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands