Develop a Web Experience Strategy on the front-end to ensure success on the back

What is it exactly that you're trying to accomplish with your website or web-based application? Increased sales and customer acquisition? Lead generation? Improved employee productivity? Lower costs through user self-service? All valid objectives, to be sure. But knowing this is only half the game. Now that you know what you want to accomplish, how are you going to do it? What features are you going to deploy to meet user needs and achieve your objectives? The answer lies in your Web Experience Strategy.

In it's simplest form, the Web Experience Strategy answers the question "How?" Perhaps the most concise, but still effective, method we've seen for documenting your strategy is the one offered by Greg Storey at A List Apart. Greg's basic framework is something like this:

• To convince... [your specific users]
• to act (buy from, read, use, etc.)... [your website or web application]
• instead of... [your competition]
• by... [the methods you'll use]
• because... [your value proposition]

Strategux added the next to last line, as we felt that somehow Greg's definition was missing a key ingredient. But the basic structure is intact. And a strategy that follows this framework would likely serve you well. But in many cases, the factors influencing your strategy are far more complex, and you may need a far more detailed strategy to base decisions on. Remember that your strategy may be incredibly complex and sophisticated, it's the product that must be simple to succeed.