Everything about your website should be done to make things as easy as possible for your users. Or, as we writers say, know your audience.
"Great," you may say, "but I have two audiences: general Villages residents and club members. And their needs are different." So, look at your website through the eyes of a generic Villager. Then look at it again through the eyes of your club member. Repeat every time you change or add something.
In our club's case, we have two points of view to satisfy.
- Members come our site to get information and/or get something done
- Non-member Villagers come to our sight for one of two reasons:
- We have events open to the public, so they come to find out about those events and how to partake if they are so inclined
- Or they come to find out if they want to become a member and, if so, how to join
There is a subgroup of our members who have specific needs. These are our board members. Their needs are different from those of our general members. Trying to meet board needs on our public-facing website would over complicate it. In a future post, I will suggest how to create a walled-off subsite for you board without mucking up your website for general members and the general public your site serves.
How would you describe the needs of your audience?
Rules of Website Design
If you're a webmaster, chances are good you know your way around a web browser, are comfortable with web interfaces, and good at finding what you want on a website. But that last sentence does not describe your target audience, many of whom are neither skilled at using a computer nor have the patience or skillset to dig around on your website to find what they are looking for. So follow these tried and true rules of good user interface design:
- Make finding frequently used functions obvious
- Make finding infrequently used functions discoverable
- Make all functions as easy to use as possible
- Use as few words as possible everywhere
- Make a page single-purpose whenever possible
The overarching principle is less is more. At the same time, give your user everything they need to know to accomplish what they came to your website to do.
