Website Design and Joined Up Thinking

• One of the harshest put-downs I’ve heard is the sarcastic riposte “Oh, very impressive! Joined-up talking!” Let's face it, though, joined-up anything is usually a good thing. Linking things together logically is almost always a key factor to success and this is particularly true when applied to business website design.
• The process of designing a new website is just one example where joined-up thinking doesn't just make good sense – it’s practically essential. But what is “Joined-up thinking?”
• Put another way it is “Thinking things all the way through” and whilst a good web design company can undoubtedly help with this, it is really more successful when a client does most of it by themself.
• The starting point in the thought process should be what you want from the site – and that’s not as dumb a question as it might seem. Is the site there to inform? Generate enquiries & leads? Generate direct sales and thus revenue? OR might you want it to do several or all of these things?
• It’s important to be clear on this point from the outset – and it will help if you can communicate clearly to your designers “I would like my site to…..”
• Immediately after this, though, needs to come the question “What will my customers/clients want to use the site for?” Hopefully the answer to this question will tie into the previous answer. For example: “They will visit the site to check availability of my products, place an order and make payment” ties in with “I’d like my site to generate revenue through sales”.
• But in addition, clients may wish to track the progress of their order. They may also wish to contact you with a query, make a return, or to ask about a product they’d like but cannot find.
• You the site owner, in the meantime, will need a site where you can fully manage your stock, track orders, add, change, delete listings and probably send out mailshots to customers periodically to boost sales.
• The trick to joined-up thinking is not to stop with the first, obvious answer to the two key questions but to explore them all the way through – until you have a detailed idea of what you want/need from the site and what your customers or clients want/need. Armed with this information, you are then in a position to give your web design company a clear brief which, when met, will leave you with a site that perfectly fits everyone’s needs.

• You can usually tell when a site has benefited from a joined-up thought process. It tends to be easy to use and to offer that little bit more – like a formal ladies wear website that offers a downloadable prom planning sheet and budget guide or a town council website that offers full minutes of all its meetings for public reference.
• So, to summarise, take that little bit extra thinking time because if you do, your design brief will be that much more focused and, ultimately, your website will be more successful.