Web site goals and objectives
What are you trying to achieve with your website?
One of the biggest problems when building a web site is working out not only the audience, but what the objectives of the site are and how this will be communicated. Your aim is to balance your needs as an organisation and the needs of your users to make a useful, usable web site.
Focus on two key questions at the start of your web project and keep them in mind as you progress;
- What use is the web site to the visitor (the user/external facing)?
- What use is the web site to you as an organisation or team (internal facing)?
Objectives and goals
Be clear on what you want to achieve. Without this understanding you can have confusion and waste time and resources. Be aware of the reason why you are creating a web-site and work towards its successful implementation.
Some typical uses of a web site within the University are:
- Educating and informing: providing learning resources
- Marketing - promoting what you do and courses or services that you offer
- Reducing help requests via email, phone and feedback forms
- Business support - providing support information for an application or business process
- Community: building a forum or community
Learn from others
You can either learn from the best, or else learn from someone else's mistakes. Choose a site that is similar to the one that you would like to design and ask yourself whether it is functional, easy to understand and navigate and whether or not it does 'its job' as a website.Ask those hard questions..
Are you employing technology because it is functional or because it is what "everyone else is doing?" Be wary of using technology that does not support the goals you have decided upon! Divide your attention between business goals and user goals. They would have different emphasis but should meet some general common requirements-such as usability.
Goals
Business goals
Consider how the site will make your goals easier (i.e staff intranet for staff information dissemination). Will your site inform, support, promote, communicate or educate? What are the different goals associated with each of these specializations?
User goals
What are the users requirements? How will they use the site? What scenarios or features are essential to your users experience?
Accessibility goals
Does the site meet accessibility standards? How will you go about meeting accessibility standards-will you have less information in .doc or .pdf format? Will all your images have alternative text-who will write these?How will we know if we have a great site?
An obvious sign would be the decrease of negative feedback regarding the (non) usability of your site, or the (non) availability of information. Your Google analytic's are flying off the chart-and you are retaining users (repeat users).
Putting it all together
After collating all your goals and objectives for the site it is now time to create something cohesive-a tangible expression of your site.
- Project plan: A short overview of the project, including budget, timeframe, technology, risks and assumptions.
- Business Analysis Document: An outline of the business needs and objectives of your web site
- Specification Document: The specification outlines the web site should do when completed. It describes any functionality, as well as any constraints of the system. Noted for not saying how functionality should be achieved. (Also known as a Requirements document)