I was doing a little bit of user testing on a website for a very large multi-national quite a few weeks ago, just to inform a pitch, and one of the headlines for my findings was that the current site undermines the brand.
More recently I was watching someone else present those findings to a board – we won the pitch btw – and at that headline there were some rather vociferous objections from the gallery. “How can that be?! Our products are world class, we don’t build websites!”
Yes. Your products are good but that isn’t all you are being judged on.
Say you go into a fancy restaurant, you’ve wanted to try it for ages and you are quite excited. You sit down and wait ages for the waiter to take your order. The food arrives and it is melt-in-your-mouth delicious. You are replenished and want to leave but there is a further wait for the bill.
The food was great, but the experience was lousy. Is that an unfair comparison? Perhaps the food was great but the wine was lousy. “But we are not vintners, we make great food!” Yes, you make great food but you should also know what a good bottle of wine tastes like. If you want a great restaurant you need more than just good food.
If your website doesn’t work properly or uses the wrong language, that will be reflected on your brand. No question.
Worse. If you can’t make a website that works how can I trust your products? It’s all technology, innit?
