According to a 2009 online user research study by Nielson Online, more people are online in South Africa than ever before, and they're spending more time online viewing more content. The number of South African unique browsers and pages viewed both increased by 25% between December 2007 and December 2008, while total time spent increased by 45%. The study revealed that the web was accessed 16.8 days a month on average at home in April 2006 (compared to 14.4 days on average in 2002). 37% of home users access the web every day at home. .
At work, the web is accessed 23 days a month on average, basically every working day. Home users spend an average of 5.8 hours online per week and work users 7.4 hours per week. People generally do not spend much more time online than in previous years. (Source: www.neilson-online.com) .
Websites in South Africa started out to be purely informational based or brochure sites. Soon thereafter business owners started realizing the internet's advertising potential and started spending money on positioning their products and services online. They realised that more visitors to the website would lead to increased sales. Companies then started to invest in organic search engine optimisation by making sure key wording, meta-tagging and title tags were linked to their websites. To enhance the number of online visitors the notion of sending HTML newsletters, SMS campaigns, pay per click campaigns and even email branding developed into common practice.
This is where the South African Market finds itself today, but we are still far behind the rest of the world in terms of relating web activity into financial turnover. More and more visitors use the internet and visits different service provider sites, however, it is necessary to optimise the conversions in other words, getting the visitors to make transactions on the websites they visit. This is where User Centred Design (UCD) started.
Armed with these statistics and trend information, ProsperO follows a policy of UCD when developing a client’s website.
Think about this. Your website's success depends on the actions users take on your website. So it would make logical sense to design the website to influence user actions in such a way to achieve your marketing goals. Right?
We make use of a 5 Step UCD process when designing a website:
- ProsperO takes your company objectives into account when designing your website. We work around what you want your website to do and set out making those goals achievable.
- Then we look at your competition and we make your website even better, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors.
- Communicating effectively is the next step in the process of building a fantastic website. Words are the key selling point and you need to communicate with your target audience. What people read on your website could make the difference between a "sale" or a "no sale". And the only way to know is to test, test and test. ProsperO will make sure the website copy reflects the message you are trying to send to potential clients. We calculate who your target market is for you, and how they retrieve information from the internet. Which tone of web copy will attract them to associate with your product or service? Which images should be used? The web copy for a person who in a senior management position in his late 50’s will not respond to a website with web copy more associated with students and 20- something individuals. Nor will web copy convey the right message if the product is not taken into account. The web copy for a beach backpackers cannot be the same as the web copy for a 5-star exclusive guest house. Identifying and speaking to clients effectively is one of ProsperO’s trademark services.
- Once we know the company objectives, and what the competitors do, and we know our audience, how we should communicate to them etc, we can then start working on a site map and wireframes. This way we are able to create a virtual layout of the site, and place the key focus areas in the design.
- The website design, look and feel is the last step of UCD. Giving the user(s) what they want, and can understand, in a great looking website, easily accessible information regarding your services and products. and keep them coming back with regularly updated news.
ProsperO has developed web design techniques to uncover the needs of users which deliver profitable user experiences and produce results.
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