Your website is a supermarket. To make money and stay in business you need to help your visitors achieve the reason why they came to your website in the first place.

The following was a shopping experience that I had the other week when buying a last minute ingredient for my 86-year-old grandmother’s birthday cake.

The task: purchase Kraft cream cheese for my grandmother’s birthday cake icing.

How I achieved my Mission

1. I entered the super market through the large sliding doors at the end of the building.
2. I checked my options made my decision and progressed through the turn style that says, “Enter”; my other option was to go through a check out aisle, which looked more inviting as the “Enter” turn style was down the other end of the shop.
3. I raced by the teasers and other invitingly stacked shelves of chocolate and toilet paper.
4. As I do not shop often, leaving it to my more competent wife, I was a bit lost as to which way to go. I started glancing up along the top of the rows where the various signs hang looking for the refrigeration section. At the same time, I instinctively chose a direction and started walking.
5. The shop had a dogleg in it and from where I was, I could not see all the signs declaring what was down each aisle.
6. Scurrying down the main corridor, I kept checking the signs hanging above my head at the entrance to the different aisles. At the same time as I passed each aisle I gave a sidelong glance to make sure that the refrigeration section had not been hidden next to the crisps in the middle of no mans land.
7. Eventually I found the refrigeration section and started wondering up the aisle looking like I knew what I was doing.
8. Butter, ice cream, frozen vegetables, there it was the CHEESE.
9. I knew my goal was in sight I could feel it in my bones. Somewhere in all that brie and cheddar there must be …”cream cheese” I muttered to myself staring blankly at another block of goat’s cheese, ” Where is the Kraft cream cheese”.
10. I looked up and saw an assistant at the top of the aisle; I approached stealthily and cleared my throat. “Excuse Me,” I said, “Do you know where I can find Kraft cream cheese”.
11. The assistant walked me back to the cheese section and after 10 seconds of looking pointed to the Kraft cream cheese, which had been there all along.
12. I made my escape back the way I came with my prize tightly clenched and selected a check out till
13. Standing in queue, I noticed that the person ahead of me was having banking problems. I made a judgement call. The check out queue next door would be faster. With cat like agility, I jumped queue before the little old woman heading toward the till got there.
14. Eventually I made it to the till, handed over my money and left the shop having achieved what I came to do.

How does my super market experience relate in any way to a website. Well according to Steven Krug quite a lot. In both instances, I arrived in an area where I needed to find what I was looking for. I arrived with a specific purpose in mind and I knew that if I managed to find the correct path I would be able to achieve my objective. As I started browsing, I looked for direction. The first place I looked for direction was the posted signs above the aisle; these posted signs are similar to navigation headings. Under each heading, the shop owners had categorized things into what they thought would make sense to me their customer.

There was also plenty of teaser information along the way encouraging me to do and participate in various actions. Sometimes those teasers work sometimes they do not.

At a certain stage I got frustrated and gave up following the navigation path that they had sign posted for me and I turned to an assistant for help. This assistant was able to direct me to what I was looking for. Search on a website is the shop assistant. It is the place where someone can go and ask for directions.

Depending on the person and the nature of what they have come to do. The search area may be the first thing that is used. If I had walked into the store and immediately asked for help this would have been the same as going straight for the search box on a website. It is important not to presume that a visitor will always use navigation or always use search.

As I entered the shop, I had the option of being sneaky and going through a check out aisle. By doing this, I would have arrived for the first time in a part of the shop that the owners did not expect to be my first experience. If I had, the signage was consistent from where ever I walked into the store. A website also needs to have consistent navigation because not everyone arrives at the home page and follows an exact predefined path.

So what learning’s can we draw from our website and my super market experience

1. We do not know exactly what people want when they arrive at our site.
2. We do not know how they will arrive at our site: through our designated entrance or through a check out aisle (a different page).
3. We know they will need some kind of direction.
4. We are not able to direct them on an individual basis. We need to do the best we can in helping them and directing them. We do this by creating useful categories and then posting helpful signs.
5. We need to provide the ability to help our visitor-overcome problems and frustration. We provide assistance in the form of staff or a search function. By helping our visitor achieve their objective with a positive outcome, they are more likely to return.

A websites real world elements

A web site does not have the real world information that we are able to use normally. For example, a street corner has a sign that points in the direction of the street. A website does not have that luxury. It is important to work with what you can and make sure that each element of your website contributes to the ease with which a visitor is able to navigate around your website.

Elements that a website has to work with are.

1. Graphics
2. Fonts
3. Information
4. Products offered
5. Navigation and categorization
6. Assistance and search

The element of Navigation and the headings used.

Navigation is like the signs hanging over each aisle in the super market. The signs are aimed at giving quick clear information as to the type of things that can be found on the shelves of that particular aisle. Not every product that is stored in an aisle can be listed on the header signs. If I wanted to buy coriander seeds, I am sure that I would not find it on an aisle header sign but I would probably see the word Condiments. Condiments would suggest the type of things I may be able to find in that area and I would guess that this is where I might find coriander seeds.

A websites navigational structure is very much the same as the super markets. All the content that a website has needs to be categorised correctly into various sections. These sections need to make as much sense as possible to the largest number of people. For example, Herbs could replace the term Condiments. Which would make the most sense?

To classify the aisles of your website

1. Start with your gut feel. Make a list of all your content, add an extra column to your piece of paper and write down the category that you believe the content exits in. It is important to use this as a starting point and not be hung up on the list you have just created.
2. Take that same list and ask two other people to do the same. Let them categorise the content. (You could do this using cards, asking the participants to sort the cards into categorised piles, this can help the participants)
3. Compile the results and make a list where if two out of the three people agree then that category is chosen.
4. Take your categories to the internet and do keyword research looking for words that you may have missed. Keyword research allows you to tap into what thousands of people are actually searching for, the questions they are asking. It is a great way to get into the customers shoes.
5. Recompile your categories adding in new information that you may have found from your keyword research.
6. Repeat step 2. This time provide your participants with the categories that you have decided on and ask them to sort the content into the most relevant ones. If possible, do not use the same people.
7. Make any adjustments that are needed following the results.

The above process will give you a relatively robust way to of creating effective categories that a visitor will be able to use to identify where information is stored. These navigation headings are so very important and if you can create effective navigation the sites usability will increase. With an increase in site usability, there will be a decrease in user frustration.

User frustration leads to visitors leaving the site and not completing the task that they would like to complete.

My Assistant

Another important element of navigability is assistance. When I was in the super market, I was able to find a real living person that could help me identify where the Kraft cream cheese was. A websites search function acts like a shop assistant.

The search bar should always be relatively close by. It should be clear as to what its purpose is and inviting enough that I would use it when stuck. A search box should not be the primary focus on a web page. If it is, it becomes the annoying pushy sales assistant. If the search box is not inviting it is the grumpy assistant. If the search is not effective and takes me to the Condiment aisle when I am looking for cream cheese I would also give up and leave and in the case of a website probably never, come back again.

There are a number of solutions in implementing an onsite search solution. Google probably offers the easiest solution however doing a quick crawl I found a few different solution providers that are free with varying degrees of difficulty in setting up.

To be able to set up Google Custom search follow the instructions on the Google custom search page after signing up.