In the wonderful world of advertising no client in their right mind would run a major campaign without doing the ubiquitous research groups bit beforehand – the foundations.
It’s the same with websites – great looks and expensive design are all well and good but if the behind-the-scenes team didn’t lay the foundations first you might be in trouble.
It never fails to amaze me – why are some websites just so frustrating and difficult to use? And why, then, is website usability not higher up the agenda? If you are seriously considering a site redesign or upgrade, put aside a small but friendly sized part of the budget for User Experience testing – right through the IA, design and build phases.
There’s nothing worse than realising the foundations weren’t properly laid and expensive post-launch fixes could have been avoided.