Sidebar: User advocate Jakob Nielsen's top 10 mistakes of Web management (June 2000)
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- Not knowing why.
Web site content providers must know site goals and strategic role.
Do not build a site that your top execs will love; they are not the target audience.
Site structure should be determined by the tasks users want to perform on the site. A classic sign of a mismanaged site is when the home page has a button for each of the company senior vps.
Consistency is key to usable interaction design.
As a rule of thumb, the annual maintenance budget for a Web site should be approximately the same as the initial cost of building the site, with 50 percent as an absolute minimum.
The Web is a medium. It's different from TV, print, glossy brochures, and more. The only way to get great content is to have one staff group develop content for the Web, and another for print. Both should work together.
Do not link to your home page in ads. Instead, link directly to the product page from the ad.
The sites each have a difference strategy and purpose; treat them that way.
Most traditional market research methods relate to creating a desire for a product and getting it sold but do not provide detailed information about how people operate the product. Web design is an interactive product, and therefore, usability engineering methods are necessary to study what happens during the user's interaction with the site. Watching four or five users as they actually use your site to perform real tasks is about all you need to determine major design problems.
It's a hug mistake to treat the Web as if it were an online brochure and manage it out of the marcom department. The Web should be considered one of the most important determinants for the way you will do business in the future.{/%BODYCOPY%}
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