Many large organisations are made up of lots of different departments, each with their own specific targets and objectives and because of this they all obviously want to have their campaign on the homepage of the website.
We tend to try bombard our consumers with anything and everything possible without actually creating a simple user experience that actually asks the user what they are looking for and what you can assist with.
Just like in-store design, web design has a very specific science, methodologies and approaches. I am not going to go into detail around those topics but rather focus on the concept of designing for humans.
Designing a website is a complicated process that requires a lot of research and insights. The challenge is the fact that there is never just one target audience with one specific need. Every individual is different, in the way they navigate a website, their needs for visiting a website are different, the information they are looking for is different, however you as a user-experience specialist will be expected to design a digital user journey that meets every individual's needs in the most efficient and effective way.
These are my favourite videos when it comes to web design because they give you a completely different perspective as to what it means to design for humans.
How often do you get this feeling when you land on a website's homepage, you have absolutely no idea where to navigate and there are just banners everywhere you look trying to sell you something that you are not interested in.
This is a common problem that I am sure everyone has experienced at some stage, you finally find what you are looking for and now you want to check-out or complete a lead form. Can anyone say "hippopoto mice"?
When all else fails we usually resort to the "search box" only to realise the results are not even close to what you were searching for or it doesn't work at all. This is often an element of a website that is completely overlooked yet it is so vitally important.
So in summary, when designing a website remember that your target audiences are "humans" as well and not just a statistic or graph from a usability test. When users come to your website, why not just ask them what they are looking for before you try and force irrelevant products and information on them?
