Three questions to answer before you design your website

A new website is one of the most visible things a business does, and one of the easiest to get wrong. The problems rarely start with design or code. They start earlier, when a team begins choosing colours and templates before it has agreed what the site is for.

Before we draw a single screen, we ask every client the same three questions. They take an afternoon to answer. They save months.

01Who is the one visitor that matters most?

Every website has many audiences: customers, partners, job seekers, investors, government. Trying to serve them all equally produces a homepage that serves none of them. Choose the visitor whose decision matters most to the business this year, and design the first screen for them.

That choice does not exclude everyone else. It gives the page an order. The others still find what they need, one level down.

A homepage that speaks to everyone is heard by no one.

02What should they do next?

Write down the single action you want that visitor to take: book a call, request a quote, download the app, apply. If you cannot name it, the site will not know what to ask for, and visitors will leave without doing anything.

Once the action is clear, every page can lead towards it. Content that does not help the visitor reach that step is a candidate for removal.

03What is the one thing they should remember?

This is the point: the difference that makes you, you. It should fit in one sentence, and a visitor should be able to repeat it after thirty seconds on the site. If your leadership team gives five different answers, the website will say all five, and visitors will remember none.

AfterThen design

With these three answers written down, design decisions become easier and faster. The team is no longer debating taste. It is asking whether a page helps the right visitor take the right step and remember the right thing.

That is what we mean by define, don’t decorate.