Hello! I’m Anya, the Product Specialist at Notamedia digital-integrator. Our department does analysis for websites and mobile applications — identifies requirements and business goals, studies the subject area, creates the architecture and interfaces of the future solution.
In this article, I want to focus on how to understand what you want from your website. How to set the task so that the result doesn’t disappoint you.
Before contacting an agency, you need to define the format of work: website development is a broad concept, so decide what you need.
Redesign of the current site. As a result of the redesign, the visual of the site changes, but the structure of the pages and the information on them remains the same.
Remaking of the current site. In this case, everything changes — the visual solution, the structure of the pages, the information on them. Redesign may add new features and integrations.
Creating a new site from scratch. The structure, information, and visual solution are also created from scratch.
When redesigning a site, it will be enough to formulate wishes for new visuals and find some references of what you like.
When you decide to remake or create a new site, you need to provide much more information.
- The purpose of the site development.
- Who will use the site, who is your target audience?
- User flows.
- Site functionality.
- Site structure.
- Content.
We highly recommend spending time and effort on this, because the more specific you tell what is needed on the new website and what final result you expect, the more accurate and lower the cost estimate from the agency will be. If there are some white spots in the project, then an agency makes an approximate cost estimate and puts in more risks that increase the final price of the site.
0. Formulate the business goals of the site
Understand why you are making a website: what are the main tasks. Business goals will always strongly depend not only on the specifics of your business but also on the stage of its development.
For example, if you are just opening a small clothing store, then your goal may be acquainting the user with the store’s assortment through the site. If the business continues to grow, then new goals may appear, for example, increasing store sales not only through an offline point but also through the website. Over time, this goal can transform into building customer loyalty.
The more specifically you formulate your goals, the easier it will be later to check if your site is fulfilling them. We recommend adding certainty to the goals in terms of the time and scope of their achievement.
One of the most effective ways to set goals is the SMART method.
1. Define the key users of the site and their goals
First of all, it is important not to confuse key users with the target audience of your product. The target audience is people who use your product and service that share common characteristics (for example gender, age, income, place of residence, profession). If your product has offline distribution, some of the target audience won’t use the site. Therefore, it is important to divide the audience and focus on those customers who will visit the site and use it to solve their problems.
To identify key users, select segments from the target audience that will use the site. Don’t focus on age, gender, income, and other characteristics of the audience, but try to understand the needs that your website needs to cover.
For example: if a user visits your website for the provision of consulting services, then it will be more important for you to understand what problem he plans to solve than how old he is.
In the process of identifying target users, you can give them a characteristic or a name to make it easier navigating further who is who.
For example: for a website that provides consulting services, the following target users can be identified — business leaders and the media.
Next, you need to list all the needs or tasks of the key users that bring them to the site. For example, the user needs to understand whether the service will help solve a specific problem in his business or the user needs to get advice on the service.
2. Create a user flow for each task (optional)
What is a user flow? Well, user flows in web design are the visual representations of the actions users can take to complete tasks on your website. This is an optional step that you can skip. But we recommend that you do it to understand what functionality and information the user will need.
At first, your flows will be only hypotheses, which can later be tested with the help of the agency (at the analytics stage) or already on the finished website (through web analytics).
First, you need to define the user’s entry point to the site. This will not always be the home page. Often, users come from search engines directly to some internal page of the site.
Next, you need to list the steps that the user will take to solve the problem.
– From the search engine, the user goes to the service page.
– The user examines the information on the service.
– He understands that the list does not suit him.
– Finds the item “Services” in the menu, clicks on it, and goes to the page of the list of services.
– He chooses a service, clicks on it, and goes to its page.
– He studies the information on the service and realizes that it is potentially suitable for him.
– He wants to get advice on the service and clicks the button for sending an application.
– In the opened application form, he fills in the fields and sends.
– Receives a message about successful application submission.
At this stage, the structure of the future site may be unclear. But you can start making assumptions in what places and what actions the user takes. This will gradually help shape the overall vision of the site.
3. List the main functionality of the future site
Often people don’t understand what lies behind the phrase “site functionality”. You can say that functionality is everything that requires more than just clicking on a link.
For example: log in to your personal account, add a product to the cart, apply a filter, send an application, or a search query. Also, the functionality includes the rules for displaying content. For example: when other similar products are shown on the product page.
An example of an idea dashboard, taking into account functional requirements
To understand what functionality you need, re-read the flows again and write out the user’s actions from there.
For example: if a user sends an application, then you need the functionality of creating and sending an application. If you plan to edit the fields of this application over time, then you will also need editing functionality.
You can start with the user’s tasks. For example: if a user on the site has a task of obtaining advice, then the live chat functionality may be useful to you.
To the list of functionality, compiled by user flows and tasks, add the functionality that you are planning. For example, it is important for you as a company to receive feedback from site visitors, but key users do not have such a scenario. Just add this to your list.
4. List integrations of the future site
As in the previous stage, integrations can be formulated independently or you can isolate them from the list of site functionality.
For example: if you plan to use live chat, then the site needs integration with this service.
When is integration required? When data comes to the site from some third-party system.
5. Create a preliminary site structure
Based on the user's tasks, understand what pages should be on the site.
For example: if a user has a task to find the required service, then he will need at least 2 pages — the page of the company’s services list and the page of the service itself. And if the user searches for a page not through the list of services, but through the site search function, then you will also need a search results page.
Write down all the pages and make a hierarchical structure of them: which page should be located in which section.
Complete this list with other required pages.
For example, if your site has forms in which the user indicates personal data (phone, mail, last name, and first name), then you need to provide at least two content pages: a page with a user agreement and a page with a personal data processing policy.
6. Prepare content for the new site
You have determined what pages will be on the new site. Now you need to understand what information you will post on them. To begin with, you can pick up content that you think is appropriate for each page, and then check these pages from the user point.
When checking, you will understand whether there is enough information to solve the user’s problem and where it is worth placing this information. Perhaps you will see that some functionality is missing and add it to the list.
Also at this stage, you will be able to understand what information or images you do not have and order them in advance.
For example, you are planning to post photos of executives on a page about a company. But all of the current photographs are in different styles and also out of date. This means that you need to do a photoshoot in advance so that by the time the site is launched, all the photos are available.
If you want a certain style, structure, then we advise you to attach references. If you want a website for a car dealership, then it would be logical to attach links to resources that you like.
Writing texts after finishing the design is wrong. Because the site should be not only beautiful but also logical, user-friendly. Starting from the design, and not from the content, you will definitely forget important blocks.
7. Choose a person who will be responsible for the project of the new site
After you have prepared all the materials on the site, you need to decide who in your company will communicate with the agency throughout the entire period of development. It will be much easier for everyone if this person combines business and IT competencies.
Prepare for the fact that participation in the project will take up a significant amount of your employee’s time.
8. Determine the circle of people who will make decisions on the site
Before you start working with an agency, decide who will make decisions regarding the website. The fewer, the better.
Turning the requirements of one person into an elegant solution is always easier than the requirements of ten people. In addition, a large number of decision-makers directly affect the timing of the project: the more people, the longer approvals take.
9. Answer clarifying questions
So, the main work has been done. Then you will have to answer a few clarifying questions.
- What domain will your site have?
- Will you need a responsive version of the site for mobile devices?
- Will you need other language versions?
- What are the terms and the estimated budget of the project?
After you answer these questions, you need to collect all the information in one or more documents and send the link to the agency for further evaluation.
After completing this work, you will not only receive an accurate estimate of development costs from an agency, but you yourself will begin to see the whole picture of your new website.
