When you need help deciding what your website should be...
Website requirements describe the features, functions, and content of the website. They are a list of what the website must have and what it must allow users to do. The requirements guide the design, development, and testing of the website. Without documented requirements to test against, how can you determine when your Web project is complete?
We believe an effective website has to do more than look great. It must help your organization achieve its goals while meeting the needs of its users. We use these techniques to understand those goals and needs:
- Stakeholder Interviews – conducted 1:1 or in small groups, remote or face-to-face, we talk with the stakeholders of your website to understand their likes and dislikes of the current website and what they would like to accomplish with a new website. We aggregate the information we collect and present the results organized around features, content and design.
- Competitive or Best-in-Class Analysis – As users become more Web savvy, they develop expectations about what a website should be like. By analyzing sites in your industry or class we’re able to learn from others and carry that knowledge over to the requirements for your website. Our documented analysis gives you an in-depth look at what your peers are doing on the Web and helps us craft requirements that leverage the best of the best.
- User Focus Groups – We conduct user focus groups to assess user needs and feelings. We bring together six to nine users to discuss what features and content they want or expect in your website. We listen closely for scenarios or use cases, as we believe scenario-based design leads to a website that helps users accomplish their goals. A session typically lasts about two hours and is conducted by a moderator who maintains the group's focus.
- Review of Your Current Site – With an understanding of your stakeholder needs and wants, what your users are trying to accomplish, and the state of peer websites we conduct an independent assessment of your current website and document its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
The information we collect during the stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, user focus groups and website review is combined and distilled to create a cohesive set of requirements for the user experience of your new website.