Intelligence
If you don't ask you don't get.
Your website is not just a pretty calling card with pictures. It is a call to action to your customers. If you want your customers to do something, whether it be to buy, to sell, to read, to sign up or just to admire your website, you have to tell them and show them the way.
Every website has an outcome aim.
What is suddenly clear is that creating a website that works as a business is not as simple as some make out. Every part of it, from the look & feel, to the content, to the images used, to the action paths, are all part of the offer that convinces the customer to act (or not to). A website is not just what it sells - it is the complete bundle of benefits and satisfactions the customer's perceive they will obtain.
Most websites are designed with no thought for the outcome and leave the customer to find their own way around. The customer wonders around aimlessly before clicking off and clicking on to a better more clearly sign posted (intuitive and outcome led) website instead.
All websites therefore must be designed with a clear understanding of the particular business and its market and need to have clearly sign posted 'action paths' i.e. customers must be told what they are meant to do and be shown how to do it!
At Place1 we research before we design. We research the website's customer's off and online behaviour, the competitors, the market, the industry. We then convert this research into the navigational structure, the content strategy, the look & feel, the logo, and we design it all around the outcome aims.
We call this designing with Business Intelligence. This at its most simple means designing websites that fit their market, not 20 inch Mac screens.
This we think is very important.
