When most of us think about design, we forget who we’re designing for, and what our goals are when we design. With powerful tools like Photoshop 5.5 and Flash at our disposal, many of us lose sight of what we’re actually trying to accomplish.When most of us think about design, we forget who we’re designing for, and what our goals are when we design. With powerful tools like Photoshop 5.5 and Flash at our disposal, many of us lose sight of what we’re actually trying to accomplish. Instead of reminding ourselves that we’re building sites to drive sales upwards, we often fall prey to the “art school student” attitude. Egos in hand, we think we know what’s most attractive, most effective, and seldom get outside feedback.

Vanity is the designer’s biggest sin. The bottom line is, we’re missing out because we neglect what matters. Zona Research estimated that 62% of online shoppers gave up at least once while looking for products, and that 42% of online shoppers decided to look for offline satisfaction via traditional purchase methods (Zona Research’s Online Shopping Report, 1\’\’\’). Let’s just admit it: we get bogged down with minor aesthetic details that aren’t helping us make money at the end of the day.

So, let’s take a break from the world of making buttons and animated graphics for a moment and go for higher ground. Let’s consider how looking at the overall flow of our design can directly impact our wallets, and what we can do to regain our focus. After all, you only have so much traffic, you should make the most of it.

Complexity is the Enemy
Complexity is the enemy! Tattoo this on your forehead backwards and look in the mirror every time you get ready to work. Do you remember what it was like the first time you used a mouse on a Mac Classic? The first time you sat down at a PC with Windows 3.1? Many of us don’t. In fact, get chatting with a group of experienced adult webmasters, and you’ll be trading stories about your old Apple ][+ within minutes. Many of us are old school, our computers are simply extensions of our body. We had the benefit of growing up with online communities. This is woefully not the case with your average ‘Net surfer. Before someone gets to your page there are layers of complexity for the surfer that you probably never consider:

&#14\’; Level 1: New users must navigate their operating system, moving between windows, error messages, dialogue boxes, errors, and mysterious icons.

&#14\’; Level 3: Getting anywhere online, new users must understand making and using bookmarks, moving forward and backwards between pages, how to type URLs correctly, and how to use search engines.

Guess what, boys and girls? We’re not even at your page yet. Once they get there (if they get there), surfers are then asked to employ more brainpower to make sense of your page. This brings us to your realm, where you can make a difference.

&#14\’; Level 4: Faced with the page, visitors must understand using links, how to identify and use forms, clicking between frames, as well as identifying decorative graphics vs. usable graphics.

&#14\’; Level 5: The final hat-trick involves inexperienced users grasping downloadable plug-ins, scripting errors, understanding (and trusting!) cookies, knowing to turn on/off JavaScript, and finally gaining enough confidence to use the tools at hand.

If you have any doubts about this, then you should enlist for a tour of duty in a Technical Support department. (Every designer should be required to chat for an hour or two on the phone with a new AOL user trying to download a movie, or navigate a site!)