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Form over Function?

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lookingahead

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What should be done when starting a new website. Should it be flawless from the get go, such as a great design, great CTA's etc. Basically have it looking great and what not or could some of it slide just to get the product out their to start generating some revenue/traffic then invest in a better design later on down the road.

Thoughts?
 
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johnp

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Two things:

One - The key is to start the learning process as fast as possible. If you spend a lot of time trying to make it flawless, then you won't get anywhere fast, and you risk wasting A LOT of time and money. The faster that you can learn about your product and your consumers, the faster you can adapt. People will accept an imperfect product, I'm seeing this happen first hand.

Two - Challenge yourself. Can you sell people on an imperfect product/site with bugs? If you can then it will be a breeze getting people to use it AFTER you make it better. People try to make their products flawless because they don't have faith in their product. In other-words - don't be a little wuss. Create something, have faith in it, sell the shit out of it, make it better.
 
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Oh and to add. I sat down to sell the concept of the idea to an executive of a business the other day. She was going through it then BAM, she runs into a bug. I was honest, I said "haha yea, that's a bug. We will fix it later." it's that easy. Most people don't give a shit or even know that they are experiencing a bug.
 
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fastlaneCoder

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I'm a programmer. I can tell you from sheer experience. It WON'T be perfect from the start. That is an "action-killing" fantasy that you should exile from your thought process. I say it's action killing b/c you may never launch b/c your site isn't "perfect". Strive to launch the MVP (Minimum viable product) as soon as possible and then [read: here's the kicker] solicit user feedback and make improvements based on that! I can't remember the exact chapter in TMF but Mj made the mistake of changing his website's design and his customers hated it. Oh always make sure you thank them for their feedback and don't take any negative criticism personally. And don't be dumb enough to give them a negative response to their critiques, you never know what they'll do with the emails or if they'll record the phone calls! All it takes is one pissed off customer with a screenshot or a copy of your email to ruin you!

With things like this pay attention to your users. I don't know what your app does but you should integrate some kind of analytics functionality so you know where your users spend most of their time and where they click the most. Then strive to make those pages/features easier and easier to use! Analytics will also help you determine where to place ads and keywords and so forth!

Work on this in iterations bit by bit. Don't make too many drastic changes at once! Add one different element at a time. People can be very lazy and resistant to change; even if it's for their benefit.

As far as the design goes. Make the most simple solution to the problem. Don't clutter the website. Look at all the major players (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) they are all going towards these simple crisp user interfaces. Look at a lot of popular sites! Study study study!

I didn't mean to make this post so long but I just got carried away. Hopefully you're able to extract something from it!
 
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lookingahead

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^^ I had never seen such a bad e-mail convo. between a customer and a business. That was terrible! Yea I learned not to worry too much on the design, get it out there and get it in front of people and see what they want. Then either add or take away stuff. I am currently working on coding/design, its taking a lot longer than expected mainly because I am learning as I go. KEEP IT SIMPLE!! << something I have read on countless blogs and sites lol. Thanks!
 
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fastlaneCoder

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lookingahead said:
^^ I had never seen such a bad e-mail convo. between a customer and a business. That was terrible! Yea I learned not to worry too much on the design, get it out there and get it in front of people and see what they want. Then either add or take away stuff. I am currently working on coding/design, its taking a lot longer than expected mainly because I am learning as I go. KEEP IT SIMPLE!! << something I have read on countless blogs and sites lol. Thanks!
Click to expand...

What language are you learning lookingahead? Personally I like PHP for web work!
 
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lookingahead

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Well I've learned HTML and CSS so far working on Java/jquery. Basically I am learning as I go, so whatever I encounter is what I will start learning/getting familiar with.
 
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fastlaneCoder

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lookingahead said:
Well I've learned HTML and CSS so far working on Java/jquery. Basically I am learning as I go, so whatever I encounter is what I will start learning/getting familiar with.
Click to expand...

That's the general spirit. The important thing is getting started. Since you're using Java I'd encourage you to take a look at Google App Engine. They seem to have a nice setup! Best Wishes!

Oh and one other thing. If you're using your programming book or course to learn. Just replace the Dr. Seuss level examples with actual examples based on your fastlane idea! You'll learn more and by the time your proficient you'll have a cool fastlane app!
 
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lookingahead

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Thanks! Do you have any online resources that are good for PHP, I'm seeing that its used A LOT in wordpress. I'm doing exactly that, as far as replacing with actually stuff I need to solve. :D
 

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