Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

In our talks about managing IT, I have been challenging us managers to really think of the consumer at the end of the design, not the design itself.

A recent study shows that the great majority of online banking sites don’t have look and feel problems. Only about 10% of those studied did. If you were to ask someone in an IT department what they thought the problem would be, they would almost always respond by saying something design related.

According to this recent study, and contrary to popular understanding, website look and feel contributes only a moderate amount to a good online experience.

Here are some of the findings of the research. Don’t think that this only applies to the banking industry; it is across the board.

The report says that:

50% have usability problems

Only 26% of sights can be said to answer directly all questions consumers have about banking problems

Less than half the sites are working to help people find the right account by suggesting one online. Of these many leave key questions unanswered and make the process harder than it used to be.

Most banks don’t target information on key pages to reach three key groups.

Many sites leave key questions unanswered about how online banking and bill payment works.

Half make it hard to get products for individuals.

Most problems are basic usability and not answering questions in the right way up front.

Only 12% of sites make it clear that customers need to enroll to use online banking.

63% of sites just don't make logging in as easy as it could be.

58% of sites neglect to reassure the customer that his information is secure, just when they need to - as he logs in.

The bottom line is that there are always two key issues that cause the problems of customer end-use.

The first is always functionability, and second right beside it is instructions of what is expected of the customer to do. Amazingly it is a problem that simply won’t go away. Not only in the sense of the big picture, but even in incremental improvements, these mistakes are repeated over and over again.

The answer to this problem is simple: you cannot leave it to your tech people to understand the problem. Over the great majority of companies, they don’t get it. As mentioned above, design of how things look and feel are relatively unimportant to the end-user. It is always about functionability and easy to understand directions and explanations.

One practical step is to have someone outside the department as a team leader or even focus groups of those who are the demographic that is desired to be reached. 

Someone has to be strong enough and convinced enough that there is a huge problem in the IT department of many firms. To face this head-on will result in great service opportunities for your company. Never leave it to the IT department alone. The result will always be design focus rather than consumer.