Today, we are going to examine the top 3 keys to successfully work with clients, SMEs, and more. We will specifically discuss how to apply these tips to designer based jobs such as web design, instructional design, multimedia design, but they can also be applied to any field where you must work with others.

If you follow these tips, it will boost your success at work and/ or improve the success of your business and distinguish you from 95% of people in your industry because most people don’t utilize these three essentials. Let’s get started!

#3 Patience

Patience is INCREDIBLY essential to successfully working with clients, SMEs, and more, but what do I mean by this?!

Let’s say a client wants you to design a website for them, and you’re excited to work with them. You meet with your client and gather all the information you need to begin the design. They provided you with a few websites that they like and would want their website to be similar to. After all the research/ discovery and planning stages are complete, the client and you are ready to begin designing! You spend HOURS creating a website design for your client that you think is absolutely AMAZING.

The next week comes around, and you’re ready to present this new design. You are ready to get your client’s approval, so you can begin development that same day. However, about 5 to 10 minutes into the presentation, the five people you are presenting to begin to express how much they DISLIKE your design, and they aren’t polite about it!

Your natural reaction is to get upset and try to convince the client why this design is good and that they should use it. This is exactly what you do not want to do. Again, this is EXACTLY what not to do. This will likely lead to negative conflict, and if the client does not like what you present, there’s a 99.5% chance you can’t change their mind.

Instead, the first thing you must do is remember that the client not liking your design is not a personal attack. With everything you create, you must remove your personal affinity to it and remember that not everyone likes what you like.

The next step is to encourage the client to express why they don’t like it. Personally, I like to tell clients or SMEs that I work with that I won’t be upset if they don’t like something. I tell them that I want to know if they dislike something because it helps us make the best website, course, video, etc. possible!

With the client present in the meeting, go back to the drawing board. Create – or use one you have already – a notes page where you can document everything they say they don’t like about the site. It’s important to make sure your client can see this notes page because it shows them that you are listening to them.

Next, encourage the client to express how they think it should look. Provide them with whatever they need to express themselves. You could have them draw it on paper, provide you with more examples, etc. If you have time in the meeting, take their requests, and begin a new design.

Keep in mind that you may need to make five designs before the client is happy. The important thing is to make sure the client is always happy. Obviously, if they want green text on a yellow background, you need to tell them why you can’t do that, so remember to use proper judgement. But most of the time the client will want something reasonable, but it just takes them a variety of visuals to get there.

Finally, there are many ways to use your patience. Overall, use it to keep the client happy and remember to remove your affinity to whatever you are helping the client do because the most important thing is to make what the client wants; it’s NOT about you!

#2 Relationships

It’s extremely easy to forget to build personal relationships with whoever you work with on a project or assignment. It’s important to not get into what I call ‘robot mode’ and forget to personalize with your client and/ or SME. EVERYBODY loves to talk about themselves and their interests, so encourage them to share what they did over the weekend, how they started in their field or business, how their kid’s basketball team is doing, etc. Keep the 80-20 rule in mind; you speak 20% of the time, and the client speaks 80% of the time.

However, you want to take in on a case by case basis; some clients may not want to personalize, and it’s important not to spend too much time talking about topics that don’t have to do with the project at hand. Analyze each situation, and determine what’s best.

Finally, you want to build relationships for a number of reasons.

• Building relationships increases the likelihood of success of the project.
• Building relationships builds rapport, and the client will trust you more.
• Building relationships makes the project more enjoyable.
• Building relationships builds enthusiasm for the project.

#1 Communication

Without exceptional communication, the project will either be a failure, or it will not be as good as it should be. Ensure that everything is communicating with the client. I can already hear the haters saying, “So you’re saying that I need to speak to my client about every little thing? That’s impossible!” No, what I’m saying is that everything needs to be readily available to a client.

For example, if you are making a course as an instructional designer, make sure that talking points from meetings are documented along with items that need to be completed. Then, send out official emails with a brief description of what is being working on, and you can now include the notes page with further details on what is being worked on at any given time. Correctly show your client or SME where they can view the notes and how to communicate with you directly.

Now, instead of relying on word of mouth conversations, everything is extremely transparent. This prevents important things from being forgotten, provides peace of mind to everyone involved, and it shows your resolve to successfully complete a project.

Conclusion

Use patience, relationships, and communication to successfully work with clients, SMEs, and etc. when working on projects for your job and/ or business. It will increase morale, quality of work, build rapport and trust, and make for a much more enjoyable experience.

Simply using these three tips will distinguish you from 95% of people in your respective industry because most people don’t utilize these tools. If you have any questions, leave a comment, and I will respond to you!

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

Before we get started, I want you to keep something in mind; I have taken college courses, followed YouTube tutorials, taken LinkedIn in courses, and have tried a variety of other ways to learn these skills. I have found PERSONALLY that I’ve learned the MOST in the LEAST amount of time possible on this platform.

Now, the learning journey is never complete because there’s always more to learn, but today’s method helped me create my first website and has taught me valuable skills that I still use. Make sure you read the article in its entirety today because I’m going to share why this platform is so helpful.

The Platform

The platform that has personally helped me learn the MOST in the LEAST amount of time is freecodecamp.org. Now let’s go through the reasons why this platform is the best.

#5 – It’s FREE

It’s completely free to sign-up and take courses on freeCodeCamp. The best part is that it’s not partially free like a lot of other programs; the ENTIRE thing is completely free. There are not gimmicks, and they don’t try to sell you anything. Now, you can learn how to code without the burden of a huge financial commitment!

#4 – The Content is Developed By REAL Instructors & Professionals in the Field

freeCodeCamp was founded in 2014 by Quincy Larson to help people transition into jobs in the tech industry that pay more. In the first two courses – “Responsive Web Design” and “JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures” – the course content is accompanied with videos made by Beau Carnes, helpful forums, and hints all provided for free. Beau Carnes is a professional software developer that does a great job of breaking down difficult to understand subjects and guides you in the right direction when you get lost.

No longer do you need to go to a university or sign up for an overpriced coding bootcamp to be in a program with top notch material and learning. You can do it all for free and from home on freeCodeCamp.

#3 – You Learn and Immediately Apply

Unlike other courses and programs, when you take a course on freeCodeCamp, you learn something and have to immediately apply it. What I LOVE about the platform is that everything is setup INSIDE of freeCodeCamp for you already. You don’t have to go back and forth between a video, a university course, and a code editor.

The course information, code editor, and videos are all right there ready to go in freeCodeCamp. I’ll show a visual of what I’m talking about below.

Look at left side of the image above. Here, it provides you the information you need to know, AND it gives you an example that is broken down to help you visualize what you need to do. Then, on the right side, the code editor that you will use is already setup and built into freeCodeCamp. This is incredibly helpful because you can go back and forth between the example and your work; it’s all right there and setup for you!

Next, if you look at the left side of the image above, there is a “Get Help” button. This button expands into three options “Get a Hint,” “Watch a Video,” and “Ask for Help.” These are all extremely useful options: especially when you get stuck on a challenge. It also offers extra in depth feedback under “tests” to breakdown what you are doing right and wrong when you submit a challenge.

It’s great not having to setup some external files from GitHub, a coding editor, or search Google for extra documentation. Everything you need to learn is right at your fingertips as soon as you start a course in freeCodeCamp!

#2 – Learn the Right Way

Stack Overflow and W3Schools are both really helpful tools that I personally use when developing sites. However, getting something to work doesn’t mean it’s a best practice and can lead to additional issues later on. Even if you’re highly experienced, you may not be optimizing your code, or you may be taking the long way to do work that could be done in a simplified way.

Even if you CAN do something, many times you may not know WHY it works. This is yet another reason why freeCodeCamp is SO useful. It walks you through baby steps on how to do everything CORRECTLY, and it helps break down complicated subjects into more manageable information. This helps you understand the how and the WHY. Understanding why something is working is extremely powerful in software and web development.

#1 – These Guys ACTUALLY Care About Your Success

These guys could EASILY have made this a paid course that requires a large one time payment or a subscription type payment, but they didn’t. They could’ve given us a free “lite” version of the program where they encourage us to buy the full courses, but they didn’t. 99% of the computer science, software development, and web development community are just trying to take your money for courses and tutorials that aren’t that helpful to anyone, but these guys offer a great program for FREE.

These guys wanted to help people escape their crappy and low paying jobs for something in a more exciting and high paying field: the tech field. In college, I felt like a number that they need for tuition and to build a bigger football stadium; I never felt like faculty and staff genuinely cared about me. On YouTube, it’s always about getting me to buy some mundane course that is not even accredited or recognized by any employers: really useful. Coding bootcamps COST A FORTUNE, and the education is managed by the same college professors that actively discouraged me if the course became difficult.

freeCodeCamp is the ONLY program that I’ve been a part of where I felt like the instructors and developers of the courses really care about me and others. They are highly successful professionals that CHOSE to make a program that noobies and people that don’t have any money can take to pursue their dreams and better their lives. If you want to become a legitimate computer scientist, web developer, and/ or software developer, give freeCodeCamp a shot!

Final Summary

1. These Guys ACTUALLY Care About Your Success.
2. Learn the Right Way, even if you’re already a professional!
3. You Learn and Immediately Apply.
4. The Content is Developed By REAL Instructors & Professionals in the Field (not some random guy or girl online).
5. It’s FREE.

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

#1 – Identify Your Target Audience

What is it that you want to accomplish with your new website? Do you want to sell dog toys? Do you want to provide a haircutting service? Whatever it is you want to do, you need to identify it and do some research on your target audience.

For example, what age group spends the most money on dog toys? Millennials spend the most amount of money on dog toys, and they are the most likely age demographic to buy items for their pets. With this simple research, I am know able to design my website that targets a specific demographic that is most likely to purchase my product.

Obviously, there is more research to be done if I open a dog toy business, but this give you a good idea on how and why you need to research and learn about your customers. This will help your business increase sales and understand things from the customer’s point of view.

#2 – Keywords

Next, you need to identify key words that people are searching. For example, if you are selling dog beds, what are the most searched terms in regards to dog beds? You can use free tools such as https://answerthepublic.com/ to determine what people are searching for.

Once you find out what people are searching for, you want to integrate these terms and phrases into your website. If the most searched phrase for dog beds is “washable and durable dog beds,” you need to take this and integrate it into your headings and paragraphs. Instead or writing “Dog Beds for Sale,” say, “Washable and Durable Dog Beds for Sale.”

Instead of naming the picture of your dog bed, “bed.png,” name it, “washable_durable_dog_bed_for_sale.png.” Instead of writing, “picture of dog bed,” for your alt text, write, “washable and durable dog bed that lasts.” This simple method will increase your search engine optimization (SEO) and boost your site in online search results.

#3 – Font & Color Scheme

Colors causes people to have feelings. For example, red invokes feelings of power, passion, love, and more. Purple invokes feelings of royalty, romance, wisdom, and more. This means that you need to use this information to decide what colors work best for your business.

If you are making a website for your boxing gym, I wouldn’t use purple. I would red to invoke feelings of power and strength. You might have to change the colors you already use, but TRUST ME; it will benefit you in the long term.

Next, you need to think about your font. Usually, I tell people to do some research on what font invokes the right emotion. However, if this is your first site, keep it simple, and use Arial. Arial is a great font that is used by many major businesses, and it will keep it simple and professional.

#4 – Keep It Simple & Don’t Overcomplicate It

Now, we are at the actually designing phase. Use a tool like Adobe XD, Figma, or Penpot to create a mockup of what you want your site to look like. These tools can seem intimidating, but they’re actually easy to use. *Note* If you are a student, you can get a free subscription to Figma!

THIS IS YOUR FIRST SITE, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Take your perfectionism, and throw it away. Make something that you’re proud of, but don’t get yourself stuck on every tiny detail. Focus on how you are going to use color, images, graphics, buttons, and how your navigation will look.

Finally, don’t make a design that you can’t actually develop. While designing, you need to constantly think, “Can I create this in a website builder or using Html and CSS?” Create something that is great: not something overwhelming! Below, I’ll share examples of my website designs.

Something I want you to notice is the simplicity. I PURPOSELY make my designs simple for a few reasons.

1. Complex sites are confusing for the users. Simplicity makes is MUCH easier for people to navigate and use your site.
2. More elements are distracting. When there are less elements on your page, it makes it easier to draw attention to the ones that matter.
3. Everything on your site should play a specific role. People don’t need an orb following their cursor around; it doesn’t add any value to the user or help you accomplish anything. If you use animations and interactivity, use it to draw people’s attention where you want it!

Remember, a fancy and complex website does not mean it’s better. Many times, it’s just confusing for the users.

#5 – Development

After you complete your design, it’s time to begin development. In this stage, you need to decide HOW you will create your site, and you have a number of options.

1. Use a site builder like WordPress, Wix, etc.
2. Use Html, CSS, and JavaScript to create an original site.

Personally, I like to create my own sites with Html, CSS, and JavaScript because I have more control over the process. However, WordPress is a good option if you’re a beginner because you can choose from templates or create a custom site with drag and drop elements.

Whatever you choose, commit to it, and see the development process through. There will be frustration and confusion. However, there is ALWAYS a solution; you just need to be patient and look for it. If you have an issue with anything, don’t be afraid to reach out to me! I WILL HELP YOU! Stay tuned for for later articles about how to develop your site.

Conclusion

1. Identify Your Target Audience
2. Keywords
3. Font & Color Scheme
4. Keep It Simple & Don’t Overcomplicate It
5. Development

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

Whether you are an instructional designer, learning developer, teacher, or professor, you can can use these tips to help learners engage better with your content. Although these tips will help, it will take time and practice to really grasp them and implement them in the most effective way possible. Don’t overthink it; just give it shot!

The Learner’s Perspective

The largest issue in instructional design, learning development, teaching, lecturing, and anything learning and/ or education related is the disconnect between the learners and the designer(s) and instructor(s). What do I mean by this? Simply, I mean that all the people making and teaching the learning content have absolutely NO idea what the learners and students like and want.

Today, I am going to FORCE you to leave your comfort zone. Today, I’m going to MAKE you start thinking about EVERYTHING from the perspective of the learner. Today, I’m going to PUSH you to be different and better than everyone else. Today, I’m GOING to make you upset. However, if this information is applied consistently, IT WILL WORK.

What Student’s ACTUALLY Want

What student’s want in their courses can be summed up this way:

1. Student’s want something that is free to use.
2. Student’s want interactive content that isn’t boring AS HECK.
3. Student’s want content that their instructor actually took the time to make themselves.
4. Student’s want to digest as much information as possible in the least amount of time possible because they are busy people.

What Student’s DO NOT Want

What student’s don’t want can be summed up this way:

1. Student’s do not want to pay for 3rd party content like a textbook, website, or really anything.
2. Student’s do not want to spend 5 hours a night reading and watching videos.
3. Student’s do not want to miss out on their lives because you’re piling up so much work on them.
4. Student’s do not want to digest content in a boring and old-fashioned format.
5. Student’s do not want to spend unnecessary time completing course work.

*Note* I can hear all the nay-sayers out there groaning, “yOu ShOulD conDuCT suRvEys.” I get it; surveys are useful. If you want to – and have the time to – go ahead. The issue is that students are too afraid to give their honest opinion about your course or other courses because they are afraid of upsetting people and that affecting their grade.

The saying remains true. You don’t ask a fish how to catch fish; you ask a fish turned fisherman how to fish because he has experience being a fish and a fisherman. In this case, you ask the guy who is and was an instructional designer and learning specialist when he was and is in school. Yes, that’s me.

Textbooks

99% of the time, information is planned, designed, developed, reviewed/ tested, and deployed without ever thinking about this information from the student perspective. An example of this is using a textbook in your course. Textbooks are old fashioned, outdated, expensive, heavy, and EXTREMELY lazy.

Now, sometimes information from a textbook is necessary and even essential; I understand this. However, this is where you need to start looking at it from a student’s perspective, and I’ll start by giving you my perspective when I actually was a student.

When I was a student, I would avoid buying the textbook at all costs for a number of reasons. And this is all from the perspective of being a student in college, but it is just as applicable to any type of learning in an instructor led or any other type of course.

1. Every time we used a textbook in a course, I can’t remember a time that we actually used it for more than about 10 pages worth of content. Why would I pay $80-$150 on something I don’t want and that we would likely only use a couple of times?
2. I was a broke college student, and I liked eating A LOT better than textbooks. And even if I HAD the money, I would rather save it for rent.
3. There’s SOOO much free content out there that can be used to learn, nowadays; why would I spend EXTRA money when I’m already paying so much for the course?

*Behold your ears because this one is harsh.* When an instructor would tell me we needed a textbook, the instructor was effectively saying this:

1. “I know most of you are broke – and even if you weren’t – I don’t care; pay the $100 for the textbook!”
2. “I’m too lazy to make my own learning material and/ or find free resources that can supplement my lectures, so go buy this $120 book!”
3. “I make 20% commission on every book that I force a student buy. Go buy my book, so I can make even more money!”

Outdated and BORING Content

Another example of content that shouldn’t be used is outdated slideshows, extremely long videos made by other people, printouts from the Vietnam War era. Basically, anything that’s old and/ or boring needs to get thrown out. Lucky for you, there are simple solutions and tactics that you can use to increase engagement and success.

Developing New Content

I’ve said a lot about using textbooks. However, textbooks can and should still be used as a tool to teach a course, especially when they have valuable information. Instead of forcing students to buy a textbook, you can use it as a supplemental resource. You as the instructor and/ or designer can have the textbook and create learning materials using the book. The same goes for any old content that may still be relevant. You can still use it, but repackage it into a new and interactive format that is appealing to the learner.

You don’t want to plagiarize, so add your own twist to the information. Every textbook and piece of content has information in it on how you can use the content, so make sure you are following the correct rules. If it turns out that you can’t use information from your textbook, use free resources online, use what you already know as an instructor, or find a new textbook that is more inclined to letting instructors use it as a resource where the information can be personalized. If you are lucky enough to have an instructional designer or learning specialist working with you, utilize them to do all the technical work while you focus on gathering and deciding on content to use.

#4 Interactive Presentations

Next, you can make a presentation in one of my favorite tools – Articulate Storyline – and add animations, narrations, and custom images and graphics. Now, you have an interactive and customized piece of content that will help engage learners much better than saying, “Go buy this book, and read pages 23-45.” *NEWS ALERT* Most people are not going to read the book even if you assign to them, so making your own interactive content that can be used becomes even more essential.

#3 Short Videos

If you don’t have a tool like Articulate Storyline, you can make a short – keyword short – video discussing what the students need to know with images from free to use image sites like Pexels.com or Unsplash.com and/ or samples of some of your own work. For example, if you’re teaching students basic JavaScript, you can make a short video for each topic they need to learn. If you want them to learn about variables, Booleans, and if statements in JavaScript, scrap the textbook and create 3 short videos under 5 minutes long explaining each one. I know 5 minutes could be tight in some situations, so if you need more time, that’s fine. However, remember that you want to keep them as short as possible. Even if you don’t know anything about JavaScript, it doesn’t matter. What you need to take from this is:

1. Make short videos under 5 minutes (or as short as possible)
2. Make a separate video for each smaller topic because it will drive engagement and break up material into more manageable segments.
3. Don’t overcomplicate it. Make something simple and short that gets the point across.

#2 Infographics

Another option could be to make an infographic. For example, if you want the student to learn about the differences between whales and sharks, a textbook is unnecessary. Create a simple infographic in an easy to use tool like Adobe Express or Canva.com. Don’t overcomplicate it; create something that’s simple and gets your point across. There’s plenty of free graphics and templates to start with on both.

#1 Gamification

There’s a lot of ways to gamify a course, and this subject will need its own article. Today, we are going to focus on a beginner and extremely easy to implement way of gamifying your course. The tool I will discuss is Kahoot.it. It may seem juvenile or even dumb, but trust me; students LOVE competing with each other.

Now, I know you’re pressed for time, so I’m going to describe how you can get started in 30 minutes. Let’s start the timer!

1. Create a Kahoot account and login.
2. Based on your course material, create 3 quizzes that are 8-15 questions long.
3. If your course is 15 weeks long, give your students the first quiz at around the two week mark, the second quiz around the 7 week mark, and the third quiz around the 13 week mark.
4. Decide the prize you want to give to the students that place 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. I recommend giving 15, 10, and 5 points extra credit on a test or project.

*NOTE* Let the students know about the competition and incentive during the first week of the semester. This will encourage students to study to beat fellow classmates. This simple method of gamification will drive engagement, success, and bonding between students!

Whether you make a video, an interactive presentation, an infographic, and/ or gamify, any of these methods will be more successful than an outdated textbook or old worn out content. Trust me when I say that students and learners will appreciate and respect the effort their instructor (and designers) made to create custom content that is free and more relatable to their wants and needs. Lastly, students may not admit it, but they like instructors who put in time and effort to make their course more affordable and customized. It will help distinguish you (and the designer) from the boring and lazy courses everyone else is making and reusing all the time.

Currently, I am a full time instructional designer for a college in Texas, so I have knowledge of the adult learning theories, Agile/ Addie methodologies, and more. However, the most success I have had with getting students to engage and creating better content is by thinking about everything from the student perspective.

Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying; all of the methodologies and methods are useful, but you want to lead everything from the learner’s perspective.

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

Now, I want to help you as much as possible, so that means I’m not going to sugarcoat the message today. I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to know in the most direct way possible, so YOU can take this knowledge and use it to succeed.

Let’s Get Started

There’s two parts to this method, so we’ll get started on part 1. First, what everybody needs to understand is that you have 10 seconds to make an impression on people. People are finicky; they have an abundance of content to choose from and a limited amount of time to give to YOUR content, so make your video meaningful and genuine!

Part #1

With that being said, Nobody wants to, has the time to, or is willing to spend more than 10 minutes watching and/ or interacting with your content! Oh no, I can already hear the complaints, “But Tom! There are plenty of YouTubers that make videos that are over 10 minutes long. I’ve watched YouTube videos that are 50 minutes long before!”

Yes, you are right. HOWEVER, if you’re here reading this blog, it likely means that you have a tiny audience, are just getting started, or both. So yes, Mr. Beast and PewDiePie can make videos that are hours long because they have established audiences that have been watching them for years, but YOU don’t.

Now, lucky for you, there is a way to combat this. When you are starting out, don’t make videos longer than 10 minutes. If you are sharing a service that your business might offer, condense it down to under 10 minutes. This will drive engagement because a 6 minute video is much less daunting and time consuming than a 50 minute long video. Let’s move onto the second part of this method.

Part #2

Before you even start recording anything, you must realize the way social media is trending. Videos on social media are trending towards the “TikTok” format of videos. The “TikTok” format of videos is a short length, vertical video, that is 1 minute or less in duration. This means that videos on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and more are really encouraging people to view these short length videos. This phenomenon has even started affecting big name YouTubers because less people are watching their full length videos because these short length videos are becoming more popular and prominent.

So what you want to do is you want to make a full length video that is under 10 minutes long. Then, you want to take that 10 minute video and break it into smaller segments. Effectively, you’ll end up with 1 full length video and as many smaller videos as you can make. The reason this is so powerful is because now you can deliver more of your content in more formats: with less work!

Final

1. Start by making videos that are under 10 minutes long.
2. Make a full length video that you can then break into segments, so you can make more ways for people to consume and engage with it.
3. Lastly, I try to make these articles as brief as possible with the most amount of information as possible because I know time is important, so reach out if you have any questions!

About the Author

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.

It happens all to often when I visit a website. I enter the site, and I’m confused what the purpose of the site is! Then, I ask myself, “What does this site want me to do?” Many times, I have no answer for that question, so I leave the website without purchasing, signing up, following, or doing what the site creator wanted me to do.

Now, I’m a web designer and developer with a number of years of experience in the field, so if I don’t have a clear idea of what you want me to do, then I’m sure everyday people without experience in web development are confused.

Solution

Before we discuss the solution, I can already see people shaking their heads and saying, “Tom, you obviously want to think about the purpose of your site. This blog is a waste of time!” I could see why you might think that, but TRUST ME; about 25% of the sites I personally visit have this major issue.

Step #1

So what is the solution? The first step is to identify EXACTLY what you want a user to do when visiting your website. This could be you want the user to sign-up, purchase something, learn something, hire you for a service, and more. Now, you might want them to do more than one thing, but let’s focus on the main thing you want them to do because this is the what you need to focus first.

Step #2

If you already have a site created, you want to evaluate the current site and pretend to be a first time user. If you don’t already have a site, create a design, and use the design to follow these same steps. Can you identify what the site is encouraging you to do? How do you know this?

However, I highly recommend doing something additional. Utilize Google Forms to create an extremely brief form. If you need help creating a Google Form, I’ll provide a good tutorial here: Google Form Tutorial. *Note* If you don’t have a site, use your preferred design tool (Adobe XD, Figma, Penpot, etc.) to create a design and then use the design to follow these steps. Next, literally create these three questions:

• What does “website name here” want you to do?
• What is “website name here” about?
• How long in minutes did it take you to understand what “website name here” wanted you to do?

Next, contact 3-5 people that you know, and politely ask them to view your site and complete the form. Encourage them to be brutally honest because you need tough criticism to really improve the site. An important thing to keep in mind is do not take negative feedback personally or let it discourage you. Use this feedback to improve and stay positive!

Let them navigate the site without any guidance because this will provide you with the organic feedback you need. Yes, you can do a more comprehensive user experience survey, but this will accomplish the same thing: FOR FREE.

Step #3

Next, it’s time to evaluate the survey results. You want to evaluate the results for similarities and differences. For example, if all of your participants had a different idea on the purpose of your site, it’s time to go back to the designing board. Don’t worry; I will provide examples on how to redesign in later steps.

However, if you identified the main purpose of your site to be getting users to purchase a product, but the participants thought the main purpose was to signup for an email list; it’s time to go back to the designing board. Don’t worry; I will provide examples in on how to redesign in later steps.

Now, if a majority of the user’s answers aligned with the main purpose you had in mind, then you are on the right track. At this point, you need to focus on how long it took each user to determine what the website wanted them to do.

Step #4

You need to keep in mind that people’s attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been. This is due to the rise of social media and instant gratification being seconds away at all times. However, this topic is for another blog.

My goal on every site that I create is to have users be able to identify what I want them to do in under 30 seconds. This may sound impossible, but BELIEVE ME, it is possible and even essential. If users said it took them more than a minute, you need to reduce the amount of information on your site starting with your home page. If it took the users more than 3 minutes, you need to seriously reduce the information because your site is overcluttered. Let’s look at an example of what I’m talking about.

The website above is the home page of a local business in my area. This website a great example of what not to do for a number of reasons. Here is the full site: Example.

1. The first thing you see when opening this site is a bunch of text. I can see that he has his contact information to the left and a number of options at the top. I’m assuming that he wants to be contacted, but the problem is the overuse of information. People don’t want to spend a lot of time reading information when they first enter your site, and it makes the main purpose of the site difficult to identify. You want the user to be able to scan your homepage in less than 30 seconds and be able to determine what you want them to do. You can describe your business in depth but do it on a separate page and in short chucks.
2. If he wants people to contact him and his business, he needs to use his design to draw the users attention where he wants it. Nothing on this site is emphasized, so I’m having to spend extra time to determine what the site wants me to do.

Next, let’s look at an example on what you should do.

The website above is my personal site. Here is the full site: Example. Let’s get into why this is a good example. The main goal of my site is to get you to contact me.

1. This site is easily scanned within seconds of opening. During the first ten seconds, I establish who I am and what I want you to do: contact me.
2. Through my design, I use color and contrast to draw the user’s attention to the “Contact” button.
3. I repeat the “Contact” button on my additional pages and later on in my homepage to further establish what I want the user to do.

You want to provide information in sections. For example, if you view my site and scroll down on the home page, I slowly establish my services and more information about myself. You want to use your home page as a short intro and provide exactly what you want the user to do. If you need to present more information, do it in chunks to prevent the user from becoming overwhelmed. The “chunk” method is used by a number of industries to prevent the user from feeling overwhelmed with content.

Please, don’t over exaggerate what I’m saying here. You an easily take this in the opposite direction. If you want somebody to contact you, you don’t need to shove “contact” buttons everywhere. Use it throughout your site, but don’t be annoying about it.

These same methods can be used whether you’re selling something, providing a service, or whatever it is you need to do. If you have questions, please leave a comment, so I can help!

Final

1. Identify EXACTLY what you want a user to do when visiting your website.
2. Create a user experience survey using Google Forms and utilize people you know to accomplish your goal without paying for people to participate in the survey.
3. Evaluate the survey results and determine what you need to change.
4. Aim to get the main purpose across to users under 30 seconds, and use your design to draw people’s attention where you want it.

About the Author

I’m a professional web developer, instructional, UX/ UI, and multimedia designer. I’m the founder and CEO of “Kalman Web Design” where I practice professional web development and more. If you need my services, please reach out here: https://thomaskalman.com/contact.html.