Why Most Website Intentions Fail

The inten­tion, goal, or objec­tive of a web­site should be defined from the begin­ning of the design process. The inten­tion of this web­site for exam­ple is to gain new clients by demon­strat­ing past expe­ri­ence, offer­ing free edu­ca­tion and infor­ma­tion about web design and busi­ness. The inten­tion of this post is to attract peo­ple who type the phrase ‘Web Intentions’ into a search engine.

The inten­tion of an eCom­merce web­site is to sell prod­ucts and the inten­tion of an artists port­fo­lio web­site may be very dif­fer­ent to that of a multi national com­pany for example.

Why is it impor­tant to define intentions?

It pro­vides con­text and gives a rea­son why we are doing what we are doing. Often a web designer may do some­thing because it looks cool with­out think­ing about the con­text. There should be rea­son­ing behind every design decision.

Exer­cise

Open your web­site or some­one else’s or you don’t already have one. Next, try and work out what the inten­tion of the web­site is. Ask the ques­tion, is the inten­tion or goal of the web­site begin achieved? If the answer is no then you may want to reflect more on what the prob­lem could be, maybe the nav­i­ga­tion is in the wrong place, maybe there are too many options mak­ing the web­site con­fus­ing, or maybe there is just too much com­pe­ti­tion and you need to try and cre­ate niche areas of focus.

A web­site could look amaz­ing and still not achieve what it was meant to do. If you hav­ing trou­ble fig­ur­ing out what could be wrong and need an expert opin­ion I would be happy to take a look. Send me the url to you web­site and I will do a free video review for you.