B2B site redesign process
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- vaxorcist0
flashbender.... I'm scared about all this customer and business analysis... we took that approach on a project some time ago, it seemed great, lots of meetings, lots of analysis, everyone felt great till the build actually started and ... uh... we found out users had vastly different ways of actually using our stuff than we had planned... even different than what they told us in all those focus groups....
we had it all ass-backwards....
we were building an app-like site, possibly a bit different, but there really, really, needed to be a better approach.... and somebody hired a developer from CA who beat us around a bit and knocked some sense into it all, he was hugely into the "fail early and often" approach, show a bunch of somewhat-working testable prototypes to actual users, learn fast what doesn't work, give them tasks, not just asking for feedback, watch more than listen.... videotape them while they try things....
Our original and bad approach was to think people wanted all sorts of stuff they could specify and tinker with, we ended up with a much more simple system, with a restaurant-menu-like list + a search box.... nobody liked 3 or 4 tier navigation in our experience....
Good luck, and remember the "Mythical Man Month" ... a software engineering book, arguing that project managers may fool themselves into thinking they can hire more people to make a deadline, but late projects are usually made even later by hiring more people because productive people have to explain everything to everyone new instead of working on stuff,... and invisible disagreements are the main reason it's late...
Large projects like this are often like a woman having a baby, it takes 9 months, you cannot simply hire 9 women for 1 month to get a baby...
- flashbender0
vaxorcist - you are a good dude. And I am going to steal your last line and use that in the proposal.
And you are spot on - the biggest part of this is going to be actual user testing and we will be working with a dedicated testing agency to do that. Because yeah, people say one thing, but do another - this is made even more complicated by the sheer number of main user types the site has.
What I'm doing in the mean time is a series of tests based on the current site templates to be used in framing the research plan.
The biggest assumption that has been made is that it will be a positive to go from the current system of 'hey, we sell things what do you want?' to an approach that says 'Oh, hi! You have a problem? We have solutions, come and explore with us'
The first test is designed to prove or disprove that.
Adding to the difficulty of this is that when the content strategy is set getting the marketers to generate the necessary customer based/ benefits focused messaging is going to be an absolute nightmare.
Thanks a lot for your insight, it is most appreciated.
- you might allow more than one path to find things... only one = some people miss it..vaxorcist