Good website design 'requires customer focus'

Category: Usability

August 26th 08, 10:34

Businesses hoping to create a successful site must place the customer at the heart of the website design process, according to one expert.

Customer Carewords founder and chief executive Gerry McGovern said in his latest advisory column that businesses have a tendency to focus more on their own operations than on the needs of their customers as they get bigger - something that could have negative consequences.

He stressed the importance of web development teams staying in touch with the customer to ensure they are creating a site that clients will find useful and relevant, rather than getting bogged down in concepts such as "interactivity" and "personalisation".

"Web teams are among the most isolated groups within organisations. They lack that crucial and constant interaction with customers ... [causing them] to fall back on opinions and redesigns and quickly lose sight of the purpose of what they are doing," Mr McGovern warned.

Businesses should be wary of creating websites that focus too much on their chief executives or corporate brand, as these are unlikely to hold much relevance for users, according to recent comments made by Seth Rosenblatt of Interwoven and reported by ClickZ.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.

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