Comments on: Make Websites About Your Users

By: Matt Robin

Matt Robin — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:05:30 +0000

Good call – I should post an article on it! (I’ll link back to yours as a reference).

By: steven

steven — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:05:28 +0000

Hi Matt – there are a lot of articles about this on the web but its good to keep pattering away at these core ideas. It comes up a lot with clients who walk in the door with an internal business focus on what they do – we want a site for us.

But really its the opposite, or should be – we want a site for our users so we can make more money and be more successful at what we do…

The first sign is usually the about page is at the top of the navigation heirarchy they put in front of you. Its really our job to persuade them that by focusing on the users they will have better business outcomes.

You should write your article Matt, different perspectives from the grass roots level are an important aspect of how we change some people’s focus. Sometimes its the 443rd article when the penny drops and they realise what we’re all going on about.

By: Matt Robin

Matt Robin — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:52:15 +0000

Damnit – I was just about to write an article about how web designs need to be more ‘user-focused’…but I think your article is much better and more relevant, so I’ll hold back for now! Just pure coincidence!

I’m really with you on this topic – because it seems that a lot of sites on the web are still being developed without considering their users closely enough. I don’t strictly mean usability alone, no, I also mean that the site designers haven’t even spent much time researching the ‘people’ who use their sites and taking influence from them. You’ve expressed this soundly in the article and I hope more people read it too.