December 18, 2009
Simple Methods & Principles for Implementing Change on Your Website
It seems to me – at least, in too many instances to mention – that companies (some surprisingly big and you’d think they’d know better) makes changes that are either incomplete, sloppily-implemented or sloppily-maintained. We’re not talking major redesigns, but those small changes that can improve a user experience, explain a certain part of a process better and/or make us more comfortable with a company.
The problem is evidently that such ideas aren’t thoroughly planned through before they’re put into practice. Sometimes we have an idea we’re so excited about using we might be tempted to rush and throw it up on our site just to see it in action… but with little real planning or thought into the process itself.
I put together a short list of ideas that will help us all as designers find ways to implement our changes safely, to be creative without violating the comfort zone of our users.
No. 1: Plan, Plan, Plan
The key to anything we’re unsure of, anything new or result-oriented – be it a new strategy in Age of Empires or a difference in user path for a client’s checkout system – is to first plan ahead. Who was it said “50% of a smooth journey is planning the first step?” He (or she) was right: Before anything is done, especially when we’re dealing with something that so directly connects to our or our clients’ business, we need to have a plan in place for the journey. So rule number one is, Don’t touch a pixel until you know why you’re touching that pixel.
This includes
- Knowing what the goal is and defining a result. Defining goal(s)s gives you a target(s) to aim for.
- Discovering what steps are necessary, in what order, to reach that goal
- Knowing how the success of the implementation will be measured.
- Making sure the client is informed of the process, and knows effects it might have.
No. 2: Start Small
For a big company such as Amazon.com, even the smallest change in wording or graphics can easily mean a lot of money (for better or worse) in their coffers. There’s a reason large projects generally take longer, and it’s not simply because there’s more content involved. These are corporations that realize if they make a tiny mistake it can cost them a lot of moolah. These are companies that do not simply jump in without proper planning, but even then they more apt to implement such changes in small ways or at least thoroughly test larger implementations on a select audience first before they go whole-hog.
We can take a lesson from this process by starting small with our projects. We’ve already conceived the idea, we’ve carefully planned what steps are involved, what the key goals, and how its success will be measured. But, is it possible to implement our creative solution on a few first? Even if for our limited resources this means asking them for feedback on static designs, any feedback we can receive from the end user can be very helpful indeed.
Even if we decide to roll out a new feature or new look on our live site, if it’s not a major overhaul then there’s room to implement it piecemeal (in some cases, however, the success of a given idea may depend on all aspects of it and it is therefore a Big Tamale-style rollout. Big Bang, all at once.)
So, for example, I have a new navigation style I’d like to try on my blog. My blog, in our example, has 500,000 readers a month and I depend on pageviews to attract advertisers – a drop in pageviews could mean less income, so I have to watch the new rollout carefully. I know why I want to restyle my navigation (users get stalled at a landing page rather than a content page, or use the search feature but never get past search results), I know what first steps I’ll take (restyling search results or a minor rewording of navigation), as well as how to measure success along the way (more click throughs to the actual articles). If this is successful, I could then take a larger step – moving from that minor rewording to a slight re-categorization of the articles. I’d do this each step along the way and make sure I wasn’t alienating my readers by rolling out changes in the wrong order or making things too drastic and losing them altogether.
The point being, there is a smart way and stupid way to make changes or to implement a new look or feature. Make sure you know why and have a method for doing so.
Don’t implement an idea just because it looks nice or seems like a good idea – that’s stupid. Have solid, methodical reasons as to why you’re doing something. Let that influence how you implement the idea.
No. 3: Measuring As You Go & Defining Success
Before you start letting a change show up on the front end, know how you’ll determine whether it’s successful or not. This could be as simple as keeping an eye on your Google Analytics, or seeing customers click through the add-to-cart to checkout process, whereas before they stalled at Step Two in the checkout. If you’re working with a client, make sure they understand also how this success will be measured. For example, you don’t want them to come back to you saying “They’re completing the checkout more, but viewing less pages in between, and that means loss in ad revenue.” (I don’t know any client who’d complain about higher sales, but just as an example) Keep all parties informed of what the success mark will be.
Also, have a way to measure long-term success as well. Sometimes, a change in a path or design on a website will bring about a spike in a certain statistic that drops off after a couple months.
No. 4: Have a Contingency Plan
As with anything, sometimes even the best-laid plans go astray. Or at least sometimes they just give you a slight hiccup. Being prepared for these speed bumps can go along way toward whether an idea fails or succeeds. How can you be prepared for things that are unforeseen? There are a few ways you can better arm yourself for those glitches.
- Identify anything (anything) ahead of time that may cause a problem – even if it’s so minor you almost didn’t include it.
- Know your idea and method of implementation inside and out. Being comfortable enough to move around with your idea is key to rolling with any changes along the way.
- Differentiate between those aspects that can be modified and those that cannot be changed. If you have identified that an aspect is vital, don’t touch it unless you really are sure it’s for the best.
- Always be available for your readers or viewers, and keep them as informed as possible. Sometimes, this isn’t possible but on many websites it really is workable. Informed readers are much more forgiving of glitches.
There Are No Hard-&-Fast Rules
Some things can be inexact sciences. There are always good principles to follow that have been proven and tested over and over again or just make good common sense (Thx, Steve Krug). This article wasn’t written to set hard and fast rules but to share some insights I’ve had and some good ideas for making changes to a website.
Note this article isn’t talking about major overhauls or redesigns of a website; for projects that are that involved, there is more much planning given to the aspects mentioned above because the rollout happens all at once and there’s no going back except in a worst-case scenario.
I hope these few tips have made sense and I’ve been able to get my points across understandably. If you have any ideas that have helped you, please share them with a comment below.
