CMS success, which way will you go...

Either way it is not too late to ensure success. I continue to see many organizations make a lot of the same mistakes during a CMS implementation. If you are in the throes of evaluating a new CMS, avoid these common missteps to ensure your content management implementation is successful.

1. Make certain the software provides intrinsic value. Don’t purchase CMS on cost alone. Not all CMS are created equal!

2. Have the requirements from all stakeholder groups been accounted for? One of the critical issues that sink CMS investments in the organization is missing all necessary input and buy-in.

3. Trying to solve too much from the very beginning and be all things to all people is a recipe for disaster. In order to be successful, work in manageable phases. Don’t be afraid to upset the apple cart and prioritize.

4. How strong is the user documentation and training? Pay more for training – it is always well worth it.

5. Develop clear cut financial and non financial performance metrics. This is key in measuring success.

6. Don’t become operational too soon – are you sure the application is ready for prime time?

7. Content, content, content. Don’t just migrate all legacy content to your new system. Take time to talk to customers,  and review your analytics reports to see the most important content. Use a new CMS implementation to reduce content to the most essential. Experience shows you can make the average website at least 40% leaner through this exercise.

Think about these when evaluating a CMS and be sure to achieve better results.

A style guide serves many purposes. On one hand, it can be used in the early phases of a project to ensure common use of font, color, image style, etc. as a project goes through design revisions and reviews. During content entry or migration it can be a reference point to ensure standard treatment of content. During quality assurance, project managers and project stakeholders can refer to the style guide as they review content and images within the completed website. The client will take that same style guide in-house and months down the road when someone asks “what color and size are the font on the product page of our website?” the answer is readily accessible to them.

Now ask yourself how something so important could possibly get overlooked by everyone involved with the project? My theory is that nobody sees the value in this document until it is needed. As designers, we tend to keep all of that knowledge tucked away in our heads while we’re working. We don’t think to record it as we design it. However it is wrong to assume that anyone else can tell the HEX value of your brilliant blue H1 tag just by looking at it. Also, designers, it may seem odd to you, but most people can’t call out the name of twenty or so fonts just by glancing at a few letters. Crazy, I know.

A great way to avoid problems is to include the style guide as part of the design process – not as a later deliverable. Every time you add a new element to your design you should add it to the style guide. That way this key project document is built as a part of the project and not as an afterthought. It will be more comprehensive and much more effective – one more shining star in your otherwise perfect project!

1. Who are your target audiences and
2. What are their computer capabilities (i.e. Browser level, connection speed, computer literacy, monitor/screen dimensions, etc.).

By answering these, this helps inform the overall canvas dimensions to support the various monitor resolutions. Monitor resolutions are typically a “4:3” aspect ratio such as 800 width x 600 height (in pixels), 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, etc. However, with larger screen monitors and widescreen laptops, the aspect ratios can also be “16:9”.

Why is the resolution of the user’s monitor so important? As a designer, you are trying to create an ascetically pleasing user experience while adhering to brand requirements and being mindful to incorporate a typical user’s browsing environment.

The smaller the monitor resolution (i.e. 800 x 600), the more vertical scrolling will occur. There is simply that much less room for content that can be displayed width wise compared to larger monitor resolutions. The larger the monitor resolution (i.e. 1280 x 1024 rather than 800 x 600), the more canvas there is to contend with. This is usually a welcomed challenge by designers to have more canvas to work with, but this also opens it up for more decisions such as:

• Alignment: How should the website’s alignment appear in the browser? Flush left, centered, or flush right.
• Background: What does the extra canvas that extends past the webpage look like? Use of a solid color, a gradient, a tile motif that keeps repeating, or an actual image itself like a photo or a watermark effect.
• Liquid vs. Fixed Layout: Should some or all of the elements expand as the width of the browser window expands? Fixing all elements to exact pixel dimensions, having some of the elements scale (i.e. top navigation bar) and some of the elements to a fixed pixel width (i.e. main content area), or a complete scalable layout to expand and contract depending on the width of a user’s open browser window.

Using web analytics to find out resolutions

Talking to users directly or getting quantitative statistics from user surveys are a good way to gain insight into their typical monitor resolutions.

There are plenty of sites out there that offer monitor resolution statistics on all types of browser such as http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp and http://www.screenresolution.org. These can be used as a starting point, but they tend to me more generalized over larger sets of audiences and websites and may not match to your specific audience subset or the particular website you are designing.

A more reliable mechanism to determine a typical visitor’s monitor resolution is by reviewing the website’s analytics. Along with finding out the average user’s monitor resolution, you can find out their computer platforms, browser type, and version of browsers. This information takes the guess work out of knowing what a typical user’s monitor resolution is.

Sample Web Analytics of Monitor Resolutions

Usually these statistics are an eye-opening experience for web designers and web developers who tend to work on extremely large monitor resolutions such as 1920 x 1200! Once the statistics are obtained, it becomes a clear decision of what size the target canvas should be.

A good rule of thumb for all resolutions and all browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, etc.) is to allow for 40 extra pixels for elements of the browser itself and vertical scrollbar. For example, in a 1024 x 768 resolutions, minus 40 pixels width-wise and you have a starting canvas of 984 x 768. Of course, you can start with less width, but go over that width and you risk the dreaded crawlbar (horizontal scrollbar). To avoid vertical scrolling, height can really vary, especially when you add all of the possible browser toolbars and Google Chrome in the mix. It is advisable to do a lot of testing in various browsers with various toolbar settings if removing vertical scrolling is a desired effect or requirement.

How wide should your website be? Leverage user analysis such as interview data, statistic user survey input, and web analytics to arrive at average monitor resolutions. Optimal user experience and best execution of your design depends on it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/ / CC BY 2.0

Despite the old adage, it’s fair to say that most of us often choose a book by its cover. First impressions reign king in our busy world – where we are inundated with choices.

What’s interesting, though, is how very little thought goes into the first impression a Web site may make. Though it can vary, one of the primary introductions users have to a Web site is within the search results. It’s a common behavior. Users perform a search, quickly scan the result set and generally make a choice on what site to visit based off the limited information that is displayed.

Countless usability studies performed here in the Bridgeline Denver offices confirm this – time and time again we see users perform a search, quickly scan the titles of each page and generally gravitate toward a page that is toward the top of the results with the most relevant title.

Hence the title of this blog post – writing digestible, relevant titles is key to a public Web site’s success.

Why is the page Title important?

Two reasons: Your user and the engines. As I noted above, users clearly rely on a page’s Title to make choices within the sea of search results. Providing a Title that is easy to read, easy to understand AND relevant for that user should always be your primary goal.

But…the search engines also rely on this field to understand what a page is about and establish that page’s position within search results connected to specific keywords and phrases.

How can I write good page Titles?

Our experience has shown that a few key steps can ensure your page Title helps drive user behavior and increase your position within search engines. The first step down this road involves research and answering a few questions:

1. How established is your brand? Do people recognize you online? Can your brand strength help drive decisions?

2. What is your audience searching for? What specific terms and phrases do they use connected to your products/services/mission?

3. What are the demographics of your audience? How do they most likely digest information?

Admittedly, these can be difficult questions to answer – but they’re imperative. Understanding how users interact with information connected to you will be the leading driver in creating solid page Titles for both your users and the engines.

Now what?

Now the writing begins – and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution here. For some SEOs, Titles are like religion – they follow one mantra and their ability for change is limited. Your audience, your brand, your message – this is all specific to you. Your page Titles should be as well.

A search for ‘Book’ in Google brought back over a billion related pages. Look at the three below.

Note: The examples above do not represent the top three searches attached to 'Book' - rather they are intended to show different approaches attached to page Titles.

The Title for the first example (Google Books Home – Google Books) is clear – Google is leveraging their brand here and providing a pretty easy to read Title. However, someone unfamiliar with Google Books may not understand they can view digital versions of thousands of books. Maybe ‘Google’s Library of Free Digital Books – Google Books’ would be an improvement here.

The Title for the second example (Barnes & Noble – Books, Textbooks, Used Books, DVDs, Music, Toys …) is certainly relevant and does a good job of quickly telling me what this page will offer. Like the first result, Barnes & Noble is leveraging their brand effectively. They take the effort one step further, clearly describing the products a user will find when visiting the site. It could certainly be argued that audiences do better with a Title that more closely follows standard sentence structure, but this title is nevertheless easy to understand and effective.

The Title for the third example (Main Page – Gutenberg) could definitely use some help. Users unaware of Project Gutenberg would be unable to understand – without reading the description that follows – what this site offers. ‘Free Electronic Books from Project Gutenberg’ would be a step in the right direction here – helping to clarify for the user what the site is and how it could be relevant to them.

Some core things to follow when writing your page Titles:

1. Make it readable. Too often companies make the mistake of stuffing as many keywords into the Title as they can. Remember, your users are reading this to determine if they want to visit your site.

2. Explain your page – using the keywords your users use. Your homepage Title should describe your site; interior pages and product pages should describe the content on those individual pages.

3. If you have a strong brand – use it.

I hoped the audience would be able to take away a tangible list of action items and at least a starting point for thinking about content personalization.  So I thought I would jot those down here for everyone.  While some folks may be well beyond the basics, I still believe these principals work for everyone.

1) Define your audience segments (understand what their intent is and what message/interaction works best).

2) Create content, imagery, messaging, branding (i.e., overall user experience) per segment.  Don’t get too granular to begin with as your website is a marathon not a sprint.  If you start too granular, you have significant risk of missing the target completely.

3) Define your site architecture (i.e., sitemap and navigation nomenclature) as well as overall design to present information in an intuitive way.  What words will resonate with your customer — not you!

4) Test and Refine: A/B testing is a very good and not complicated method for determining what content/message is working.  It involves single aspect changes one at a time to see how changes affect.  Multi-variate testing, while incredibly effective is much more costly and complex, so A/B testing may be a more appropriate place to start.

TIP: Ask your audience for only important information, and only when giving something valuable back to them.  Important information is defined as data points that allow you to help significantly enhance their experience or is absolutely necessary for your business.  Don’t ask for irrelevant information as the more you ask for the more likely they are to not answer.  Don’t ask for their full name if just email address for an online newsletter will do — again it may deter people from answering.  A “conversion” can occur over many touch points and you often don’t have to go from introduction to conversion for a visitor instantly.

TIP: You may have more information than you realize to personalize content.  Look at analytics reports to find out where they were visiting just before your site.  Did they use a search engine?  What keywords?  Are they a return visitor and did they look at the same product again? — this may indicate they can’t pull the trigger on a purchase and a coupon might help.   Did they have to register with a code or referrer information (e.g., a doctor’s ID that can tell you what type of information might be relevant to a patient based on the doctor’s discipline)?  That may tell you a lot about the person that you can interpret and use to drive relevant/persuasive content.

TIP: Andrew Hally of Unica discussed the importance of SEO and landing pages.  I don’t think his comments can be overstated.  It’s incredibly important to manage SEO properly and make sure that the landing pages (whether detailed page within a website, a microsite or a single landing page for an offer).  It really makes a significant difference in conversion to have relevant content based on what a visitor was searching for.  You have only a few seconds to hit a user with a message from an organic search engine once they land on your page.  If it’s not immediately apparent whether your content is relevant, they will leave within a few seconds.

A question that came up was “where we see content personalization tools heading”.  At this point over the next two years I don’t see a revolutionary shift in the features/functions of CMS, Analytics and eMarketing applications.  I expect that the usability of the advanced features finally means a much more wide-spread adoption of the tools.

One of the most interesting topics for me was “how much personalization is too much?”  All systems are only as good as the inputs.  Going too granular means you make more and more assumptions (either manually or through a system).  The more assumptions made the more chance for making a wrong assumption.  This means a significant risk of getting wrong content to a visitor. People also tend to be overwhelmed with managing content and message for too many audiences.  So there needs to be a balance between persuasive content personalization, risk of too much personalization and inability to manage the personalization.

I am a big fan of crawl before you walk and walk before you run.  Start smaller, typically 6-12 audience segments for most (e.g., customers, prospective customers, investors, media, prospective employees, etc.).   The one most likely to be a but more grnaular from the beginning would be customers since you may know a lot about them.  As you learn more about all audience segment behavior and can make informed, accurate decisions to further segment your audience you can do so.  It’s a marathon not a sprint.  You won’t get everything right the first time.

I know there is a lot to digest, but don’t be overwhelmed.  It’s time to start crawling!

1. Jeff Johnson – Chief Creative Officer, BigBad, Inc. (moderator);
2. Brett Zucker – Chief Technology Officer, Bridgeline Software;
3. Scott Brinker – President & CTO, ion interactive;
4. Andrew Hally – VP of Product Strategy & Marketing, Unica;
5. Joe Henriques, Regional Director, SiteCore USA

Content Re-use through CMS

In a world that has gone mad with overused terms such as re-use, green and recycle (not that those are bad things) I will attempt to make a case for content re-use that seems to be alluding companies both large and small.

For the past 12 years I have worked with numerous companies to help them develop more effective web strategies utilizing technologies like content management, portals and ecommerce. And to this day I find it both fascinating and somewhat sad to continue to see more and more companies siloed in their website and intranet approaches.

Content Re-use is one of the absolute key benefits of implementing a web content management system. In fact just about every company talks about it, demands it and makes it a “must have” in their RFQ. But how many actually implement it? I have no scientific data but from my experience it is probably less than 5%.

For example: a global company has a corporate public website and perhaps multi-lingual sites for specific regions around the world. This same company has a customer portal for placing orders or reviewing account history and a global intranet that services their employees. This is a pretty typical configuration for companies of all sizes and specialties. As a norm I have seen the website controlled by a disparate CMS, the portal controlled by some half-hearted web implementation of their ERP system that really isn’t well executed and the intranet controlled by Share Point. One company, one mission, one vision with three disparate management tools and numerous repositories. These systems are not in sync but expected to control communications with their customers, employees, prospects and other stakeholders. Very inefficient, expensive and cumbersome to manage. Think about this content such as products, news, corporate information, general pages, images, documents, video,  functionality, layouts and page elements can be standard and used across these websites, intranet and customer portal, once.

It’s a no brainer that any company implementing CMS should have goals of content distribution and synchronization of assets stored in multiple databases and re-used across multiple websites (including intranets). Again just about all CMS implementations start with this requirement only to lose the dream to one of the following reasons:

1. “There is no way we can have one centralized repository”
2. “Different websites are served from different servers”
3. “That site is not part of our domain, it is managed by this other business unit or IT”
4. “We don’t have that kind of budget”
5. “Oh there is no way we can integrate with that legacy system”…and on and on.

All of these excuses are valid on the surface but they are all noise and the only restriction to overcoming these is having a realistic strategy, including a hard ROI, followed up by hard work.

Now what are some of the myths that need to be exorcised to achieve content re-use across the enterprise:

1. It is an absolute and real ROI to have single pieces of content and other digital assets to be written and stored once, and then used in multiple locations or contexts. This will cut back on employees hired to strictly manage and maintain these sites and the time it takes to locate re-usable assets.

2. Many will argue the need for one central content repository or database. It is my recommendation that this requirement will be the roadblock to success. There is no need for one centralized database. Content Re-use can be achieved by implementing a robust and scalable CMS across the enterprise and a great services team to bring together the other repositories of content that can be searched, edited, re-used and published once.

3. You will not have to hire people to manage this process (aside from your vendor to implement). In fact it will allow you to streamline the human input and management factor and truly bring an overhead cost savings.

4. Keeps messaging, communications and brand consistent across the stakeholder spectrum.

5.  Provides for much greater control and accuracy

6. Eliminates multiple CMS tools, editors and support problems

7.  Content re-use makes everyone happy! OK, maybe that is a stretch.

I would like to hear any success stories you have on content re-use.

Site visitors would probably describe web application performance as the amount of time required for the entire page to be loaded into the browser and become usable.  Rich Interactive Web Applications often include the download and execution of several Javascript, CSS, and image files in order for User Interface to function.  Additionally, there are often Javascript and image files for ad serving, analytics, and behaviorial targeting.  Perceived loading time versus actual loading time can be debated and by loading the page components in the proper order, perceived loading time can be improved without actually improving the overall load time.  Despite the subtle difference between perceived and actual load time, the amount of time required to download the entire page and all of its components often dwarfs the time required for the underlying software to actually generate the response.  Improving the overall page load time involves identifying and optimizing all of the page components.

I recently assisted one of our customers to analyze and improve the performance of a 5+ year old publishing site.  External monitoring showed an average load time of approximately 22 seconds for some of the most visited site pages.  The first step was to understand how the browser processes and downloads the page.  Firebug with YSlow is a fast way to gain some instant insight into the page load time.

What are the important factors to consider?

800K spread over almost 80 different HTTP Requests each with its own associated communication latency and overhead is an immediate red flag.  WebsiteOptimization.com estimates this will take over 20 seconds simply to transfer the page components from the over 15 different servers.  The NET tab in Firebug provides a graphical representation of each individual page component sequence and load time.  Suddenly the stored procedure that takes 500ms to execute doesn’t seem quite so bad.

What can be done easily?

The best way to improve the load time of an individual component is to remove it.  Audit and remove extra analytics, tracking, and images.  This particular site was a CMS based site that had been live for more than five years.  Over the course of that time, many things had been added and were no longer relevant.  This site had 2 different analytics implementations and several more specialized ad targeting/user tracking implementations that were no longer relevant.  We worked with the site stakeholders to reduce and consolidate these external javascript includes as well as remove six images responsible for 200K of page weight.  Organic Javascript and CSS was combined and minified where appropriate.

If the component must be delivered, then ensure it is delivered compressed to the browser and that the browser caches it for as long as possible.  This particular site was hosted on IIS 6 and almost none of the organic components were compressed nor delivered with the appropriate headers the browser needs to effectively cache.  Configuring GZip Compression required obtaining the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit from Microsoft.  Use the Metabase Explorer to find and set the appropriate flags under W3SVC/Filters/Compression.  In general we want to confirm that static compression is turned on globally and GZip configured as well as CSS and Javascript files added to the list of static file types.  There is a great article on MSDN that covers the gory details.

Setting the Content Expires headers through IIS is a fairly straightforward process.  This can be set on a per directory basis under the HTTP Headers tab.  .NET does override the IIS setting but for static images, Javascript, and CSS this can be set quickly and confirmed in YSlow.

Content Delivery Networks (CDN), if available, can help reduce latency and load time.  Google provides a free CDN service for JQuery and other popular Javascript libraries.  If a CDN is used for organic page components then the Cache Control header will often need to be set to Public.  This can be done using the Metabase Explorer or adsutil.vbs as outlined in this Knowledge Base Article.

We were able to reduce the number of components by 15%, reduce page weight by 50%, and overall page load time by 25% using a simple browser based tool and making mostly configuration changes to the web server.  Setting the Content Expires header ensures the browser cache is used effectively and has resulted in subsequent pages loading 50% faster.

Improving page load performance often requires the interaction and assistance of the site stakeholder, IT, and development.  There are often many things that can be done to improve page load time without redesigning and rewriting the entire application or purchasing additional hardware.  The following three step process can often be done very quickly and result in an immediate and measurable improvement:

1. Audit, consolidate, and remove extra page components
2. Deliver static content using GZip
3. Set Content Expires Headers

A great CMS will automatically supercharge your website’s SEO.

We’re always launching updates to our own CMS, and we’re particularly excited about a recent update which addresses automatic 301-redirects and sitemap.xml file creation.

Auto 301-redirects

301 redirects are extremely important to SEO. But what exactly is a 301-redirect?

A 301 redirect is the correct way to redirect a page from one URL to another. Search engines will transfer all SEO credit to the redirected page.

Let’s say your website has a page that ranks on page 1 of Google for the phrase Cape Cod Resort. Maybe this page is located at http://www.acme-co.com/cape-cod-resort4.html. This page consistently brings you hundreds of leads each summer. But your webmaster is hard to reach, and you contact a local web vendor for a design and CMS installation so you can edit your own website. They transfer all your content to the CMS installation and your /cape-cod-resort4.html page now lives at a URL of http://www.acme-co.com/cape-cod-resort.This is a memorable, clean URL.

But Google has awarded so much SEO credit to http://www.acme-co.com/cape-cod-resort4.html and now they think the page no longer exists since there is no 301 re-direct! Your great SEO has gone down the drain! A 301-redirect would have transferred all visitors and SEO value to the new page. If you need to change a URL on your website and your CMS does not automatically 301-redirect to the new page, make sure to contact your web department and inform them of this step! If not, you could lose SEO credit you’ve built up!

Sitemap.xml auto-generation

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and MSN all use a standardized method for allowing site administrators to notify them of new pages to “crawl”. This an XML file usually referred to as a sitemap.xml file. While search engines can index your website without this file, it’s recommend practice as it allows search engines to do so in a more intelligent manner. Advanced users can supply additional information in their sitemap file like priority and modification dates. Check with your CMS vendor to make sure this is part of their product. Any new pages created on your website will automatically be submitted to search engines for spidering.

Usability Audience

Last week, I was an observer in six usability lab tests performed by Bridgeline Denver for one of our clients, who is redesigning their current Web site.  Observing real people interact with a Web site is very enlightening because when you observe real users, you learn first-hand if a Web site’s information architecture and design are easy to use.  Over the years, managing online channels and working at a company providing digital Web solutions, I have learned many things, but the two most important lessons I have learned are:

1. If users cannot use a Web site easily, they will abandon and never become customers. With so many options online today, nobody is willing to struggle in understanding how to perform a task or get the information they need.
2. The only opinion that matters about a Web site are the users.  They are the audience.  If they are unhappy or frustrated, that matters.  A Web site must be built to the audience, not the Vice President of Marketing, the CEO or even the Web Designer.  It is all about the user.

These lessons seem so simple, right?  But if they are, then why don’t more Managers of Web sites conduct usability tests when planning a new Web site or redesigning an existing Web site to find out what users think? I feel the answer is pressure and budgets.  They are under pressure to get a Web site live and that can make it feel impossible to add the extra time and budget needed for user interviews and a usability test.  However, can anyone afford to launch a Web site that is difficult to use , in which users cannot achieve their goals?  What is the cost of failure?  Take my advice – you want to involve potential users throughout the design phase. By understanding what potential users want, you can create a Web site that is easy to use for them.

There are several ways to test ease of use, but I recommend keeping it simple with something like usability lab testing.  For this, we recruit users that match the profile of your potential users and observe and record them interacting with your Web site. We create test scenarios that will take users through a series of tasks on your Web site.  For example, if your site was an e-commerce site and sold widgets, we may present participants a scenario that they are looking for a B sized widget and ask them how they would go about ordering one.  As they perform the tasks, we ask for and record their feedback as well as their interaction with the Web site.  In essence, we are recording what the user is doing online, his/her facial expressions and his/her verbal expression of his/her thought process. This testing allows us to measure success of task completion and uncover issues you may never have anticipated with your Web site. For example, you may discover that the copy used on a page creates confusion or the location of a button goes unnoticed.  These things seem simple and be perceived as not major issues, but they can be the difficulties that cause a user to abandon your Web site and go to a competitor.  At the end of the usability, we can provide copies of the recordings, notes from each session and a report detailing recommendations to improve ease of use for your Web site.

Best of all, when kept simple, usability testing can be very affordable. We have done tests that even include paper prototyping, where we just show potential user either wireframes of a proposed Web site or mockups of a Web site design.  We have even done informal click-model testing that involves linking the HTML for a Web site together before it is built.  Now, these are not as powerful as having a user go through an actual Web site, but they are great alternatives to a tight budget or a tight timeline.  Usability testing does not need to ‘fancy’ to be effective.  What it does do is reveal the roadblocks on your Web site. Remember, you want a Web site built for your intended users, not you.  Your user is your customer and they are the person that matters most.  Take some time to make sure your Web site is meeting your customers’ needs today because if you do not, I am sure there is a competitor who is or will.

An example of a User Persona Matrix

This is one of my favorite tweets from Jeffrey Zeldman.

Essentially what this means to me is if you want to produce a quality design, you have to truly understand it.

This may seem like common sense but in today’s fast-paced world I see it happen so often that designers slip into a trap of being driven by a project deadline which can cause them to lose sight of the big picture.

Here are a few ways to remain deeply rooted in your designs:

1. Don’t design without content.
   Designing without content is a big mistake (lorem ipsum dolor sit does not count as content!). Good content drives good design. If the content strategy isn’t there, you’re already cutting off your design’s potential at the knees.
2. Look at your designs through someone else’s eyes.
   We’re very fortunate to have a usability lab here in the Denver office so recently I had the opportunity to observe a group of participants as they interacted with something I designed. The experience was a real eye opener for me and the feedback I received made me look at my own designs with fresh eyes so that I could re-connect to the purpose as well as improve on those areas where users struggled.

And lastly, throughout the design process continue to ask yourself, “do I understand what I’m designing?” If the answer is no, you’re not going to do a good job. Always remember that staying in tune with what you’re trying to accomplish with the design is the key to making it effective.