Get Rid of Information Overload - Run a Successful Website

17 Jul, 2012

It is very common to suffer from information overload when you want to learn how to run a successful website. Whether online or offline, hundreds of books, pages, seminars, articles etc. make it impossible for you to know only what is beneficial for you. What’s worse is that mostly these sources are outdated. So what do you do? Trust this article!

The bigger picture

First of all recognize yourself as a generalist rather than a specialist. Accordingly have enough knowledge to identify an issue and know that a specialist is required to deal with it. Your focus should be on the big picture of web design and then deal with the specialists that are sometimes required for instance a specialist web design company.

“Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what's important.”

The “need to know” mentality

Secondly, identify what you need to know rather than trying to understand every aspect of the whole. A great website owner is someone who grasps the role and approaches it with a certain mentality which has the following three principles:

Balancing conflicting priorities (most important)
Defining your role
Planning for the future

Balance conflicting priorities and its pillars

It is very important that all the pillars of web design have equal priority and that you ensure a balance between them all. These pillars are:

Making your site easy to use (difficult sites cause visitors to run away and too much stress on usability can be harmful)
Providing access for all (benefits include commercial incentives, legal commitments, and moral obligations)
Producing aesthetic appeal (includes color, imagery, typography, and layout. Hefty favoritism towards aesthetics damages usability as well as other pillars of web design)
Facilitating development (includes the technical aspects of a project. Engage with technical specialists or you will miss opportunities to enhance your site)
Creating killer content (creating good content is hard but essential)
Focusing on objectives (refers to the business rational behind a site. It is the target you are trying to reach)

Now all you have to do is to create a balance among all six pillars, giving each equal attention. Do this and be assured that you’ll be running a successful website in no time!

Want to find out relevant and helpful information on building a successful website? Let 4M Designers help.

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