Top 10 Sites: Eye Surgery – Part 1

My website sucked until recently and I’ve done a lot of talking over the years about websites that suck. But one mystery seems to haunt almost every potential client I speak with. It goes something like this, “I know my site sucks but I’m not exactly sure why.”

When clients come to me with this observation I usually conduct a strategic marketing needs analysis but the truth is people don’t want to pay for a needs analysis. Clients want to pay for something “real” like a new site that doesn’t suck.

The problem is, though, that without demystifying the problems of why a site sucks, the chances are that you’ll just create another site that sucks. It might look prettier but it will still suck.

Instead of bloviating on and on about my high ideals about strategy and websites, I thought I’d actually try to show you a bit about my process through some research I’m doing for an actual client.

Client & Situation
My client is an eye surgery center that specializes in cataract and vision correction surgery. I have been working with this client for several years on other projects but I have been keen on redesigning the website because it is poorly designed and organized and the content is not focused on consumer needs. Since my client is uncovinced he needs a new website, I need to show him why he needs a new site. One way to do this is to show him some competitive websites that are doing a great a job with their websites.

This is what I think of as comparing Visual Value. If the competitive websites are a lot more attractive than the client’s site, the client may be compelled to do something about fixing his own website.

Here’s my basic criteria for Assessing a Website’s Visual Value:

1. Initial Attractiveness – Do you want to stay and look at the site or do you want to leave?
2. Creative is on target – the site messaging (copy, images, visual animations, etc.) engages site visitors. The messaging speaks to the needs and wants of the potential consumer. The site messaging is unique and different than the competitors and is in alignment with the services (or products) offered.
3. Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – There’s a clear primary call to action that enables a site to easily collect leads. Sites with too many conflicting calls to action are penalized as this usually just confuses users. However, there are cases when many calls to action work and sites that can pull this off are highly prized.
4. Intuitive Site Navigation – Does the site navigation make sense to the user or is it difficult to figure out? Sites that categorize based on consumer needs are more highly ranked than sites that use traditional categories.
5. Intuitive Relational Content – Does the secondary content on the site make sense? Is it easy or confusing for users to choose relational paths? (Most first-time website users will choose a relational content path over using your site’s navigation. Are you correctly placing the content they are looking for in their path?)
6. Balanced Dynamic Functionality – The dynamic features on the site are balanced, use a minimum amount of bandwidth and are easy to understand and use. Many site producers today seem to think that they should bombard users with several dynamic features all at once. This only serves to drive your potential customer away.
   1. NOTE: For example, the site may load several flash animations, audio, a whirling logo, and a video upon initial load. It’s like someone left everything on in your car yesterday so that when you go to start it today, the windshield wipers go off, the radio is blaring, someone moved the seat, the defroster blasts off on high speed and your right turn signal is on. It’s overwhelming NOT engaging.

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