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The reference in this post might only be relevant to those of us who live in cold weather climates, but the lesson reaches across every continent.

As I was trudging through the snow today, I found my mood disintegrating with every bit of unshoveled sidewalk I walked upon. Within ther city of Toronto, there’s a by-law that states everyone must clear their sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall.

Correction Note: It’s 12 hours actually – thanks to whomever pointed that out. You can read about it here.

You’d hardly know that was a law in my neighbourhood and I wonder how it’s even reported or enforced in the first place. Forget the law even, it’s just the nice thing to do. They say first impressions are everything and with only a casual wave here and there, my impressions of many in my community are not great after today’s expedition.

It got me thinking how this can be used as a metaphor to compare against a consumer’s experience with your brand or website.

I had a task to do today and it was hampered by the fact that it was extremely difficult for me to get from point A to point B. If I wasn’t intent on completing my “task,” I would have just given up.

Many visitors to your website are there for information, but often they are there to complete a task (even if they don’t realize it at first); whether it be sign up for a newsletter, or puchase a product. If you make it difficult for someone to do this, it’s likely they won’t go through and complete the task – especially when you have a plethera of competitors out there waiting to turn your prospects into their prospects.

The first encounter many people have with your brand may be on your website, which means that it is important for you to stop and think about the kind of experience you want them to have. Make it detailed, not just “I want them to like our site and find it easy to use.” Everyone wants that. What specific experience do you want them to have, what do you want them to think about your brand after visiting your site for the first time, or the tenth time? Hold on to that thought and evaluate your current site and any future updates you make to the site against that.

If my neighbours had thought about the experience they wanted to have when they walked through the snow today, then I might have had a better experience myself; perhaps the sidewalks would have been shoveled and I wouldn’t be in such a cranky mood right now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under user experience, websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.