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Articles Part 1 - Home Page Optimization – Collecting Content Daniel Szuc Principal Usability – Channel Strategy Brett King Managing Principal – Business & Market Strategy Date Published: 10 May 2005 In the first of a 4 part series, User Strategy will define questions to help understand what information should be presented on the Home Page and how this can be prioritized for the business. The Home Page is the most important page on your web site. It’s a place that should serve to benefit both the needs of users and the business. Users > Satisfy an information need quickly > Complete a task without the need for Customer Support > Service a problem > Buy a product or service Business > Sell products > Increase transactions over the web > Save money > Publish latest company news and results > Transfer requests from Call Center to web channel More specifically business goals for the web site may include: > Increase online registrations > Increase the number of products purchased online > Increase the number of users leaving the site from the Home page Both users and the business want to find ways to do this as efficiently as possible so it does not waste time and also costs less than it would through using the phone or visit a shop. What information do we put on the Home Page? For many of the clients we work with, the challenge is what information should be given the highest priority to put on the Home Page? Very often this can result in one Business Unit wanting content dominance over the other to show their power in the organization without a real regard for whether it has any real benefit for the business or shows some real ROI through the web channel. User Strategy applies some of the following questions when analyzing the content that should be displayed on the Home Page: 1. What tasks do users want to complete when they visit the Home page? 2. Who are your users? 3. What is the goal of the Home page? 4. How does the business currently measure the success of the web site through the Home Page? 5. How does the business want to measure the success of the web site through the Home Page? Before asking these questions it’s important to gather all the content from the business. This will help prioritize the content around both user and business need. How do we understand the content that exists currently? Content Needs Analysis & Requirements Before we determine the content that should be displayed on the Home Page it’s important to understand the content that exists currently. We get this from a number of sources: Call Center site visits – visit the call center to collect information about major call types. Some call types may show immediate opportunity to shift customer traffic to the web channel. For example, one client we worked with showed a high % of calls received for “forgot password”. This was an obvious opportunity to improve this function on the web site and remove traffic from call center. Web Site Audit – audit the current web site as there may be information that is hidden in the information architecture that may be relevant to users and help the business move traffic onto the web channel. Web Site Statistics – analyzing web statistics to see what areas of the site are getting the most traffic. It’s also useful to look at the terms users are typing into search as this can help understand information they are looking for that may not be immediately obvious via the Home page. Stakeholder Interviews – speaking with users of the site helps us understand how they use the site currently, the information they are looking for, issues they are experiencing and if there is any content that is too hard to find or not available on the site at all. Content Needs Analysis – sending out a survey to determine the content requirements. We notice that content is sometimes published on a site without any real user or business need for the content in the first place. Expert Usability Evaluation – by evaluating the site using critical task scenarios we are able to determine how easy it is to find the content we need and if this content is being fairly represented on the Home Page. Once we have collected all the data we are in a better position to create a “laundry list” of data that can be prioritized with both user and the business. Part 2 – Home Page Optimization – Content Scoring For more information on how to optimize your web channel by using the User Strategy contact Daniel Szuc or Brett King

file size: 200k | pages: 3 Subscribe to our free newsletter More Info | Privacy Policy Email Address Please use the link below if you wish to contact the writers of this article Daniel Szuc dszuc@Userstrategy.com Brett King bking@userstrategy.com World Usability Day - Conducting a Usability Walkthrough for www.globalhand.org Date: 3 November 2005 Location: Hong Kong read more |register |

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