UX

Imagine a house that was built according to no master blueprint. What would it look like? Do you think the interior layout would make sense? Do you think you could get things done inside? Would you be able to find your way around? Would you feel at home?

Probably not. The interior layout would undoubtedly be a senseless jumble, preventing you from finding your way around and accomplishing even the most basic of tasks. Because so little was put into the planning process, you’d feel put off and disoriented in such a house, and you’d want to get out of it as quickly as you could.

An architect crafts a master blueprint for a house to eliminate these issues.  Because an untold number of on-the-spot decisions are made during the build phase, the house may differ slightly from the blueprint when it’s actually built, but that doesn’t really matter. The blueprint provides direction; the blueprint provides a master plan.

Just like a house, a website or a web-based application is a miniature physical environment. You go in, you look around, you make yourself comfortable, you get things done, you stay awhile, and then you leave. If the experience is a good one, you even come back from time to time—maybe you even become a regular visitor.

If a website is like a house, and a house is designed with a blueprint, why, then, are websites so often built without blueprints?

The answer is that many websites are rushed into production in order to meet immediate needs. In the rush to meet an immediate demand—say, to counter a competitor’s move—businesses spend unfathomable amounts of time and treasure to produce websites and applications without thinking about the long-term ramifications of designing something new or altering an existing design to meet what could be a passing fancy. And just like a poorly conceived and hastily built house will eventually succumb to the elements, a poorly conceived and hastily built website will eventually succumb to the disinterest of dissatisfied customers.

Creating good blueprints, therefore, is essential in conceiving, designing, developing, releasing, and maintaining a good website or web-based application. When we talk about creating blueprints for a website or web-based app, what we mean, chiefly, is creating customer experience blueprints that account for every single interaction—every single experience—a customer can have while visiting the site or using the app.

A Customer Experience (CX) Blueprint is a thorough, holistic accounting of a web-based initiative that finds the nexus—the sweet spot—in which the initiative can satisfy the big three: business goals, customer goals, and technology goals. In other words, a good CX Blueprint finds that point of convergence where your business goals are being met, your customers are happy, and your technology is making the whole system hum smoothly. After identifying that sweet spot, the CX Blueprint plots a course to reach it.  When done correctly, the CX Blueprint is an incredibly powerful document that serves not only as the backbone of a particular project, but as the backbone of a particular product.

Why, then, don’t most companies take the time to draft a CX Blueprint?

Because just like hitting a baseball, creating a CX Blueprint is both an art and a science, requiring a unique blend of real-world business experience, customer insight, technical expertise, and social science savvy.  Many companies simply don’t have the manpower or the wherewithal to create CX Blueprints. And let’s face it, time is also a factor. Strategic planning takes time, and in the digital age, everything happens in real time. Many companies succumb to the old adage that in the face of adversity, it’s better to do something quickly than to do nothing at all.

Online, however, this is a dangerous strategy. Online, when your brand equity is wholly invested in your customer experience, you don’t want to risk making your customers unhappy. Taking the time to perform a thorough CX Blueprint before you embark on any web-based initiative will reap untold dividends in the end.

And if you need help creating a CX Blueprint, Makibie can help.

By Robert Pothier