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Many organisations take great pleasure in overloading their homepages. Too many items on the primary navigation, bizarre numbers of quick links, multiple colours, content and banners, can all contribute to the failure of a website.

User tests and focus groups are great eye openers – revealing how a simple homepage combined with straight forward navigation are all users are really looking for. However, from an organisation’s angle, there is an ongoing brawl between digital marketing/website teams and the rest of the business in terms of sharing homepage real-estate. As a result, some websites suffer from serious balance issues between showcasing must haves, good to haves and nice to haves.

There is no question that the importance of user/customer experience has grown exponentially amidst organisations. However, this enthusiasm embraced at the outset of many web projects sadly dwindles throughout the course of a project’s lifecycle. And more often than not, the user experience succumbs to the limitations of corporate jargon and mandate – some clients aware of the real issues but choosing to live in denial.

Here are some points to keep in mind while (re)designing a website:

1. Moving too quickly into design before getting the basics rights leads to backtracking –Often stakeholders perceive information architecture as building wireframes. However, not many people would consider building a home sans blueprints. Firstly, you have to establish a plan, create a blueprint to execute the plan and then set the foundations. Wireframes are a good way to:
   • Visualise the product before building the basic architecture
   • Identify and reach out to your users
   • Find out what brings them to the website and what repels them
   • And, find out their information needs and plan the content structure accordingly
2. Creating a navigation tab for every business unit is a recipe for disaster –It is impossible to have space/primary navigation tabs allocated for each business unit in your organisation. Setting the expectations of business teams and key stakeholders along the lifecycle of the project is extremely important to help achieve the end objective.

3. Avoid using organisation jargons and brand names as labels –In a world often full of too much corporate jargon, the last thing you want to do is overload users with business specific terms. Use of abbreviations and acronyms, complex or new terminologies without adequate definition, can be really discouraging for users. Not all the users have the patience, or penchant, to learn new terms and retain them.

4. Don’t hide information in multiple levels of content hierarchy – Information hidden below three levels is equivalent to being nonexistent. If it is unavoidable, ensure that the navigational aids on the website are designed in such a way that draws the attention of the user.

Technology has created a new breed of users – they are unforgiving, highly impatient and expect everything to be completed right away. Confronting these users with a complex navigation scheme and overcrowded website makes you an architect of your own downfall. Users don’t care about your business units; they don’t even care how creative you are with words and visuals. All they care about is the task in hand and how to accomplish their end goal – be it ad hoc research or more targeted activity. If presented with a better option, they will gladly take it – be it your website or competitors’. So keep it simple and straightforward.