Design for it’s own sake can be beautiful, but without a focus or direction, there is little value in it.
Designing a website without first researching your target audience is like making shoes—for a slug. No matter how beautiful you make those shoes, the slug won’t buy them. They simply don’t need them!
But what if your research showed that slugs were using mobile devices to search for teflon slip-ons? That would be weird, right? Well, then we could create a mobile-specific strategy that is visually appealing and engages slugs to quickly get them what they are looking for.
What if the slugs are searching for specific red teflon slip-ons? If they are unable to find what they’re searching for, large groups might slither away thanks to bad site design or an inconsistent flow. That’s not cool! We must constantly monitor and change our designs based on the data we gather if we’re ever going to stop those slugs from slithering away.
So much research can be done before we even think of designing anything. In my opinion, this is the only way to begin, but we aren’t perfect. Maybe what we thought would convert well isn’t working. Testing subtle design variations on a landing page shows what appeals the most to your audience.
Designing with research in mind is a fantastic start—but design for development and marketing is an ever-evolving process. This is why we do what we do on a long-term basis with all of our clients…no matter what their audience may be.
Life is already slow being a slug. Let’s not upset them.
