Who Are Your Clients

1. Start with demographical data - You probably already have the usual client demographics, age, occupation, income, education, geography, buyer, seller, etc.  If not, you may be able to make some educated generalizations just from your interactions with your clients in your business or organization.  Write this down.  You'll need to have some working facts or assumptions for whom the site is designed.

2. Beyond, the demographic data, who are your clients?  Are they hip young professionals, high school students, soccer moms or dads, lawyers, artists, theatre goers, engineers, polictians?  Each "personality" will interact with your site differently, will have different expectations and will have different needs from your site.

3. What do these personalities need or want from your site?  This is the part that can get a little tricky.  Its very tempting to say, I know why they come to my site and I know what they want.  It's very tempting to skip this step.  Be careful.  You may get it exactly right or you'll miss something important. 

Different personalities have different preferences.  Some personalities might want to talk to a person to ask about questions about the products or services you offer.  Others would rather read FAQs or product specifications online rather than talk to a "sales person".  You might want to gather email addresses from your clients before they access certain information on your site, but some people will not want to do this and will leave your site to a competing site that does not require personal information.  The point is you may not fully realize how your clients want to interact with your site.

4. How do you find out what your clients need from your site?  One easy answer is, ask them.  This need not be complicated or expensive.  Often just asking a few users why they would come to your site, what they think about your site, what would like to see on your site or not see, what do this like or dislike, etc.  Be creative.  Asking a few simple questions can reveal important information about how they use your site.  Write down what they tell you.

Another way, that takes a little more time but need not cost much (if anything) is to watch them.  Ask a couple of volunteers, people who fit your customer base or desired customer base, to sit down at a computer and go to your site.  Give them a few minutes.  Watch how they find your site (very important), watch to see if they're hesitate, express confusion, click on the "wrong" links, look for something that isn't there, or ignore something that is.  Write down your observations and then review it with them.

5. Succesful websites are designed for clients that are well understood.  They are designed around know client expectations, needs, wants, knowledge and capabilities.  The fewer the assumptions the better.

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