Photo Credit: Timothy Vogel
A few weeks back, I received a call from a church communicator inquiring about my consulting services. She was hoping that I could review her web strategy and offer feedback … something that I’m more than happy to do.
Following a few exploratory questions, it quickly became apparent to me that the strategy had holes – she had fallen victim to one of the cardinal sins of website design and strategy develop … something I refer to as silo web design, or the act of only considering the needs of the organization and not those of your audience.
Fess up. We’ve all done it before — developed a project from beginning to end without seeking anyone’s feedback or only speaking to those who will tell us what we want to hear. To be transparent, the first church website I ever developed in 1995 was done so in the comforts of my office, alone without a word of feedback from anyone. Granted, back then many of us were simply exploring this new World Wide Web thing. Needless to say, I learned a lot during the process. And ultimately the biggest lesson is to build what your web audience needs, not solely what you or your leadership wants.
The ultimate goal of ministry-based web architecture and design should be to make new disciples and help your community of faith deepen their relationship with Christ and one another.
In this case, the church communicator I was advising had only spoken with executive leadership during the discovery process. Seeking feedback from stakeholders like executive leadership, church staff and committee chairs is very important to the process. In fact, they are a great resource in identifying the various user groups of your website. I reminded the communicator that church staff seldom visits the website, and that the ultimate goal of ministry-based web architecture and design should be to make new disciples and help your community of faith deepen their relationship with Christ and one another. With that in mind, the job of defining your audience and creating clear, concise messaging is simplified.
Finally, don’t let a fear of speaking to people you may have never met or the pressures of a rapid turnaround get in the way of listening to the needs of your users. Their feedback will guide the development of your web strategy.
Don’t fret, in the coming weeks, I’ll discuss how you balance the fine line between staying true to both the human-centered design process and meeting the needs of the organization and executive leadership.
Here are two resources that I’ve developed that you might find helpful during this process:
- Slides from a recent user-centered design presentation
- Link to User-Centered Design questions for your church
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