What happens when the site sucks and you need to re-design it?

Late last week the sky fell on my head! In the process of publicising this blog, I received a comment from the Business Warriors forum (see my earlier blog post about this group) from a wise young man who knows much more about Internet commerce than I. In effect, he said “Re-design the main Fundisi.com site”. I asked him to be a bit more specific, and he obliged with a fair amount of detail. (Constructive criticism backed up with logical reasons might be hurtful, but it is very helpful.) Another comment was also posted on this forum from another expert. It was brutally critical (and even more helpful). Effectively they both implied that the site really sucks.

Now after so many months of development, I’m sure you understand that I have a large emotional attachment to this site. My first reaction was horror and annoyance. My next reaction was, “OK, they may be experts, but my site is designed to be easy for Joe Soap to use. It couldn’t be simpler…”

However, it’s important  to try and remain objective. I realized that I was far too familiar with the site and probably couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Time to bring in some guinea pigs who will test the site. Fast. The reason why I hadn’t done this sooner was because you’ve got to have a functioning site to test before you can test it. (Or so I thought.) Once we had the site more or less up and running, it was so far behind schedule and so over budget that all I wanted to do then was bring it on line as soon as possible. Money had run out, and my predominant feeling was that the site had better start bringing in some sales.

I quickly spanned in quite a few testers who were unfamiliar with the site and simply told them to browse the content, choose a course, and buy it. I gave them no instructions at all.

The results from the guinea pig test were frightening and left me in no doubt that the gurus were correct. “User unfriendly” was the consensus. Everything would need to be re-designed and programmed again.  Sure, some of the development programming code could be re-used, but, in essence, I start building a new site today.

The very expensive moral of the story:

Get feedback from potential users early and often. Since site evaluation is subjective, never trust your own judgement since you are way too close to the project.

From now on, this blog will reflect the development of a new site. This time, it will not be the re-telling of something that is done-and-dusted, but rather, I will be reporting back with information as it happens. My opinions, thoughts and decisions will reflect my current state of mind and may well be subject to change as the story unfolds. Stay tuned…