The harsh truth about the corporate web site

There are many corporate sites - there are few good ones.

I thought that this situation has developed only in the post-Soviet space. Red directors, those few who still run the remnants of the largest plants in Europe, will naturally better lay down under the tank than give the money, people and material resources to create "it is not clear what in some kind of network." New directors, who did not really graduate from school in the late 80s, early 90s and certainly not studying in institutes (glorious 90s) feel as a place on which they are misinformed, to put it mildly, when they are offered to create a corporate site to attract new customers, maintain business reputation and image of the company. Yes, even when with such a request comes its own programmer, often performing duties from the loader to the system administrator, and asks for funds - the director’s eyebrows crawl upward, and his mouth proposes to go for a walk in places not so close - at least to the stars.

I myself worked for 8 years at a large state chemical enterprise (4,500 employees), 50 people in the IT department.
You know what our corporate site was. No, you do not know what he was - it just was not as a fact.
To my question to the head of the department, why actually? - followed by a simple answer: “The director has forbidden (!!!) to do it”
Seeing in my eyes a clear misunderstanding of the head, and he understands IT quite well, he said that the director said to him: “We have excellent sales of products, we don’t have time to produce products already sold and are forced to refuse to enter into new contracts - why do we need a website?”. This is how the enterprise itself is still without a website, I really quit it six months ago, but I don’t think that at least some steps were taken to create a corporate website, especially a crisis.

It turned out that this problem concerns and concerns not only me, but some foreign colleagues.
The website www.smashingmagazine.com published an article by Paul Boag entitled “10 harsh truths about the corporate website”
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I offer my version of the translation, more precisely, the statement (there is no almost literal translation in the end :) - my comments are in italics, there are not many of them)

Further from the author:

We all make mistakes by launching our own websites. The nature of these errors varies according to the size of your company. Your company grows - mistakes change. This article describes the most common mistakes of large organizations.

Most of the clients I worked for were large organizations: universities, large charitable organizations, public organizations and large companies. For the last 7 years, I have noted a definite return to the lack of ideology (aimlessness) in these organizations. This article aims to rid of illusions and turn people to face the harsh reality.

The problem is that if you read these lines, then you must have already come across these things. But I hope this article will be useful to you to convince the rest of the company. In any case, here are the 10 harsh truths about websites in large organizations.

1. You need a special web unit.
   In most organizations, the website is either marketing (sales) or IT department. However, this inevitably leads to conflicts and the website becomes a victim of domestic policy.
   
   In reality, the web strategy being developed should not suit absolutely all groups, departments, managers. The IT department can perfectly cope with building complex systems, but is not able to develop an online, user-friendly office.
   
   The marketing department, on the one hand, is a little better. As Jeffrey Zeldman wrote in his article “Let there be Web divisions” :
   

   The web is a conversation. Marketing is a monologue. And then everything else has this mess with semantic markup, CSS, “unobtrusive scripting”, sorting, HTML, user involvement, and, ultimately, knowledge and skills that are not subject to the requirements of marketers.

   
   
   Instead, the website should be run by a separate dedicated team. Zelman notes this when he writes:
   
   Send them (people) to a unit that can determine that your site does not miscarry your advertising booklets. Let there be a web unit.
   
   
2. Site management is a permanent (daily) work.
   But only if the website is not divided, as is often the case, between marketing and IT - this is not effective. Instead, having a special web unit that is responsible for the website, you can expect the website to become their full-fledged day job. When a web unit is created, it is usually overloaded with frames. They spend more time on site support, rather than on its long-term strategic development.
   
   This situation arises from the fact that people are hired to support the website for a junior salary. They do not have enough experience and authority to promote the site and develop it. So it's time to organize serious investments in the website - you need to hire full-time senior Web managers ( I don’t know how to say it without a piece of paper in Russian ) to move the site forward.
   
   
3. It is not enough to do a periodic redesign.
   Since corporate sites do not contain a lot of different information, they are often not updated for quite some time. They slowly lag behind in the relevance of content, in design and technology.
   
   In the end, the website ceases to meet the requirements of the time and needs to be reworked. This inevitably leads to full redesign and high costs. But this is a waste of money, because when the old site is replaced, the investment spent on it is also lost. It is also very difficult financially, because high costs will be required every few years.
   
   The right way to invest in a website is to allow it to constantly evolve. This will not only reduce costs, but also better for site users.
   
   
4. Your website should not suit everyone.
   One of the first questions that I ask clients: "Who is your target audience?" And I am constantly at a loss because of the extensibility of the answer. Often it includes a long and detailed list of different people. The next question arises from the previous one: “Which of these demographic groups is the most important?” Unfortunately, the answer is usually - they are all equally important.
   
   The harsh truth is that if you develop a website for everyone, it will not suit anyone. It is very important to clearly focus on your visitors and create design and content for them. Does this mean you should ignore the rest? Of course not. Your website should be accessible to all and not insult and ignore anyone. However, a website should primarily target a clearly defined audience.
   
   
5. You spend money on social networks.
   I think it right that website managers understand that web strategy is more than just launching a website. They are starting to use tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to attract new audiences. However, despite the fact that they use these tools, they often do so inefficiently. A corporate blog on Twitter or product demonstrations on YouTube do not find their audience.
   
   A social network is a person’s communication with a person. People do not want to build relationships in brands and corporations. They want to communicate with other people. Too many organizations are investing millions in Facebook applications and promotional videos, although they could spend this money to communicate with people in an open and transparent manner.
   
   Instead of creating a corporate Twitter account or corporate blog, encourage your employees to create accounts themselves. This will enable community members to feel that they are communicating with real people, and at the same time can attract new visitors to your website.
   
   
6. Your website is not only about you and for you.
   When some website managers want the site to be attractive to everyone, others want only them and their colleagues to like it. A surprising number of organizations completely ignore their users and build their sites according to their own preferences. This is usually reflected in a terrible design that satisfies the preferences of the guide and contains content full of jargon.
   
   The website should not condone management preferences, but should strive to satisfy user requirements. A large number of designs deviates because the boss “does not like the green color.” Also, many sites contain abbreviations and terms used only within the organization.
   
   
7. You do not get returns from your web site.
   It doesn't matter if they have their own web division or a third-party agency, most organizations fail, demanding everything from their web designers. A web designer is more than a pixel pusher ( pixel pushers - I understand the meaning, but I can’t translate into Russian :) ). Designers have a great store of knowledge about the web and about user interaction with it. They also understand the design technique, including markup systems, empty spaces, color theory, and much more.
   
   And therefore, it is wrong to give them tasks like “make the logo bigger” or “move it three pixels to the left”. By doing this, you reduce their role to operators and do not use all the baggage of their knowledge.
   
   If you want to get the most out of the web unit, describe the problem, not the solution.
   
   
8. Approval of the design by the commission - the path to death.
   A distinctive feature of large organizations in the approach to managing a website is discussion in the commission. Usually commissions are formed because domestic policy requires everyone to express all their wishes. All these suggestions from the participants are a bad idea initially, but it is naive to assume that a large corporate website can be developed without such wishes. However, when these wishes come to design - for design, this means the kiss of death (the author is a poet and romantic, however ).
   
   The design is subjective. The way we react to design is determined by culture, age, gender, children's experience and even physical form (for example, color blindness). A design accepted by one person may be rejected by another. And that is why it is very important that design decisions appear as a result of testing by users, and not be based on personal experience. Unfortunately, such solutions can not appear in commission design.
   
   Commission design is based on trade-offs. Since each commission member has his own opinion, different from the others, they are looking for ways to find compromises. Unfortunately, this path leads to the creation of a design that will not suit anyone.
   
   
9. CMS is not a panacea.
   Most of the clients with whom I had to work, put entirely wrong hopes on the CMS. They believe that CMS will solve all their problems, and they become disheartened when they realize that it does not do it!
   
   CMS of course gives many advantages:
   
   • removes technical restrictions on adding content
   • allows many to add and edit content
   • speeds up the update
   • and allows you to control
   
   
   However, most CMS are not as flexible as their owners would like. Usually they do not cope with changing requirements for websites that they manage. Website managers point out that CMS is heavy to use. However, in most cases, this is noted because people are not sufficiently trained or do not regularly use CMS.
   
   Finally, CMSs of course make it possible to simply update the content, but they do not guarantee content updating or acceptable quality. Most websites built on CMS contain irrelevant, low-quality content. This is because the internal processes in the organization are not focused on maintaining the relevance of the content.
   
   If you hope that the CMS will resolve your web site support issues, you will be disappointed.
   
   
10. You have too much content.
    Part of the problem with information on large corporate websites is that the amount of content is paramount.
    Most of these sites in the process of "development" accumulate more and more content, while no one reviews the content and does not remove outdated and irrelevant content.
    
    Many website managers fill their website with content that no one will ever read. The reasons for this behavior managers:
    
    • lack of fear: placing everything on the network, they believe that users will be able to find everything they want. Unfortunately, the more information, the harder it is to find the right one.
    • fear that users will not understand: because of a lack of confidence in their website or in their audience, they find it necessary to provide endless instructions for users. Unfortunately, users never read these instructions.
    • a desperate desire to convince: they are trying to sell a product or spread information, and therefore they inflate advertising text containing little valuable information.
    
    
    

findings

Large organizations do a lot right when developing their websites. However, they face unique problems that can lead to painful mistakes. The solution to these problems lies in a change in domestic policy and a change in brand management style. This will provide significant competitive advantages and allow web strategies to become more effective in the long term.

about the author

Paul Boag (Paul Boag) is the founder of Headscape web design studio , author of the Website Owners Manual and web design podcast at Boagworld.com .

Cross post from my blog.