Before we begin any web development project, we lead our clients through an analysis of their needs and requirements, articulate the scope of work and define the approach to the project. We call this phase of the project Discovery, and it’s foundational to the rest of the project. We tried to treat the Paramore.is project just like we would any other project as much as possible. I say tried because our tendency at times was to shortcut parts of our process; a process that is the result of hundreds of tweaks and adjustments throughout countless projects. To think we don’t need the same process we use with our clients is a little presumptuous, don’t you think?
So what we uncovered during Discovery is there are four types of people we interact with on a regular basis:
- Potential clients want to know, “Can you solve my business problems?” They visit our site to validate our company after making initial contact elsewhere. (N.B. Our data shows new business leads don’t typically originate on our site.)
- Potential employees want to know “Is this a place where I can do my best work?” They visit our site to learn about our projects and culture.
- Digital community wants to know, “Is there something here that interests or inspires me?” They visit our site to read the latest blog posts to gain insight and knowledge, as well as to network with us.
- Conference and event coordinators are asking, “Do they have someone worth booking who can speak at my event?” They are looking for us to demonstrate our speaking expertise, sample past speaking engagements and request a speaker for their event.
Clarifying whom we were building this site for gave us the ammunition to say no to good ideas so we could focus on better ideas. Here’s a quote from the strategy describing our approach to the site:
We are on a mission to un-complicate the site so that it makes a bigger impact on the people we want to reach. The site will be personality-driven based off the idea that people do business with people they like and can relate to. The site will be an exercise in restraint because we believe the less we say, the louder we say it. We’ll also make the content in the Work, Think, Connect areas minimal, which will ease the site maintenance burden.”
Without a clearly established strategy that included input from the internal teams throughout the company, the site would’ve lacked cohesion and purpose. Ultimately, a good website is not just something pretty to look at. A good website is one that solves business problems. A great website solves business problems with style. What do you think? How’d we do?
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