Standard Website Review: A Sanity Check for Your Site

Ever get annoyed with a website and simply leave?  So do we.  With search engines providing so many "relevant" results, why would we stay?  New visitors to your website ask themselves two questions before they even consider your products or services.  The first is a 5-second credibility check, "Are these guys legit?"  The second is about usability, "Can I easily find information I am seeking?"  The Standard Website Review focuses on these two challenges to improve the first few seconds of the user's experience on your website.


We Review...

Page Layout & Site Organization

• Pages are clearly divided into logical areas to promote scanning.
  
  
• Aesthetic treatments and location convey the hierarchy of items on the page (i.e. nesting, boxes, background colors, font sizes and placement)
  
  
• The user's eyes are drawn to the most important message(s) on the page. The home page is not too "noisy" with many items competing for immediate attention.
  
  
• Keep animation to a minimum. Use Flash only if it can more clearly (and quickly) convey the company message, because it will annoy some users and may slow your site load time.
  

• The purpose of the company and website are self-evident, with a clear and compelling value proposition.
  
  
• The language is concise and free of company jargon and acronyms.
  
  
• Tag line (if you have one) is short and tells the user something unique about your company.
  
  
• Your Welcome Statement succinctly provides the main point(s) of the company.
  
  
• In general, the pure marketing speak is kept to a minimum on the site.  In other words, show the user why you are great; don’t simply state it several times.

• The site is free of errors and broken links.
  
  
• Data is encrypted for any page in which the user enters personal data.
  
  
• Collect only the information you need to complete the transaction.  Users are very wary of companies collecting phone number and addresses when they are only signing up for a newsletter or trial software.
  
  
• The "Contact Us" page should include a physical address, telephone number and email addresses..
  
  
• The website should be free of 3rd party advertisements which cheapen your site
  
  

• Navigation should be simple and persistent from page to page.
  
  
• It should be blatantly obvious where to start.
  
  
• The user should always know where they are on the site (i.e. You are here indicator / breadcrumbs).  To facilitate this, each page should have a prominent page name… which should match what the user clicked to get there in the first place.
  
  
• Home is always available… and company name/logo link to it.
  
  
• Know the most common things users will do when they visit your site… and make them easy to find.
  
  
• Clickable items (i.e. hyperlinks and buttons) should look clickable.  If you cannot click on it, it should not look clickable.
  

• Include print-friendly pages with light (read: white) backgrounds; also remove banners but not relevant graphics.
  
  
• Never trap the user on a page in which they cannot go Home or Back.  This no-no is most likely to happen on forms or during purchase.
  
  
• Include thought leadership white papers and links to other useful sites.  Users are coming to your site FIRST for information and SECOND for a solution.
  
  
• Resist the urge to hide disappointing information, such as shipping costs.  Get all relevant information to the user as soon as possible.

Report

It will take 5 business days to complete your website review and prepare the report. The 10 – 12 page report will be delivered via email in PDF format. The report will include a separate section of specific, actionable, prioritized recommendations. We compose this section separately as we envision the list being prioritized against your competing development initiatives and being interwoven into your roadmap. And if you are wondering, yes... it will also include those usability items of your site that we really liked.

The report is written with the intent of being self-explanatory. We balance the need to be concise and candid with providing information that will facilitate full understanding of our recommendations. If, however, there are questions about the contents of the report, please contact us and we would be happy to explain. Finally, if you would like a presentation of the findings, please contact us. We would be happy to prepare and deliver a presentation at your location.