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Planning: Research the Market - Who's in the market and what is my place in it?

When you plan a Web site it's important to understand your audience and how they will use your site. It's also important to understand the market and your place in it. This will help you meet your audience's needs and present information/services in an appropriate way.

Researching the market can include:

• Identifying the audience
• Conducting focus groups or surveys
• Reviewing and analyzing similar Web sites. What do you like about these sites and what don't you like?
• Assessing Risk
• Calculating Return on Investment (ROI)
• Branding

Identifying the audience

Identifying the audience can be as simple as brainstorming with co-workers to determine who uses your services or as complicated as polling people who interact with your agency. If you brainstorm with co-workers, it's best to talk to the people who deal with your customers/clients on a regular basis.

Whichever approach you use the goal is to paint a picture of your average user. Things to consider include age, education level, types of information they look for from your agency, occupation, technology level (how comfortable are they on the Internet) and perhaps income level.

This information can help you determine what information to put on the site, how to organize information, what language level to use, and the look and feel of the site.

Conducting a Focus Group

Conducting a focus group is a good way to generate new ideas and better understand the needs of your target audience. Focus groups are most effective in the planning/exploratory phase of a project because that is the time it's easiest to implement their ideas.

For more information on focus groups visit the following sites:

• Online article - Conducting Focus Groups
• Online article - Basics of Conducting Focus Groups

Surveys

Surveys can help you gather information about the audience as well as what they want from your Web site. It's best to have specific questions or hypotheses in mind when creating your survey. You believe Web site visitors will want X. A survey can prove or disprove they want X.

Surveys are fairly inexpensive. They can be posted on a Web site, mailed, e-mailed or conducted in person.

You'll get a higher response rate if you keep your survey short. Giving participants check boxes (a list of possible answers or a rating scale) to answer most of the questions will make your survey quicker. Check boxes also make calculating responses easier because you don't have to decide how to group answers.

Ideally you should survey at least 400 randomly selected people. This will give you an error rate of +/- 5%. For example, if you survey 400 people and find 85% of participants want X, the number for the whole population may actually be 80% or it may be 90%. If you can only sample 200 people, your error rate will be +/- 7%.

Getting a random sample is often tricky. A truly random sample would mean everyone in your target audience has an equal chance of being selected for the survey. Try to think of every avenue to find participants -- people who walk into an agency office, people you mail or e-mail for other purposes, people who visit the state Web site (accessKansas), people at a shopping center or anywhere else. Avoid using a lot of people you know or only a specific group of your target (chamber of commerce members for example). This would skew your results.

For more information on surveys visit:

• Online article - Keep Online Surveys Short
• Online article - Tips for Creating Good Surveys

Assessing Risk

Assessing Risk allows you to plan for any problems before they happen. Brainstorm with others about what risks are associated with the Web site. For example, a potential risk may be customer service staff's inability to answer technical questions.

Once your determined potential risks you can decide if the benefits outweigh the risks. If they do, start to plan how you will deal with these risks.

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI)

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI) can be important to show the value of the Web site. Calculating ROI is simply comparing all the costs of the project to the benefits.

Basic ROI = Net Benefits/Net Costs

For many state agency Web sites the biggest benefits will be savings of staff time and improvements in customer service. These are difficult to put a dollar amount on, but they are still important to the project. So try to think of all the money savings from the Web site (paper costs, copying/printing costs, wages of any staff who are reallocated, increase in number of transactions, etc.). When listing your ROI include any statements that support improved customer service or staff efficiency. These can include testimonials from customers.

For more information on ROI visit:

• Online article - Why doesn't your ROI add up? You do the math.

Branding

Branding involves determining your agency's identity. How do you want visitors to see you? What image do you want to portray? How do you want visitors to feel? The basic elements of branding will include your logo (agency logo or a logo for the specific service), the URL (Web address), the look and feel of the site, and the writing style. All of these elements affect how visitors to your site will think of your organization. A focus group can provide input on how the agency is currently perceived, or they can provide input on your Web site ideas.

For more information on branding visit the following online articles:

• Online Article - Branding and Usability
• Online Article - Brand Value and the User Experience
• Online Article - Brand Experience and the Web