Site Longevity: What's the Use?

While site design does play an role in the longevity of a site, it is often not the determining factor. However, one of the key factors is often a site's usability, or the ease in which a user can use your site. The simple reason for this is that people are lazy. While that may seem like a derogatory statement, the underlying truth is that people want to do things as simply and easily as possible.

For example, let's take a look at a site like Digg. In the past, when you found an interesting site, you'd have to e-mail or IM the link to your friends and explain to them why you thought it was worth the visit/read. Now, you can simply click on a "Digg This" button and have it added to your profile, so anyone who knows about your profile can see what you're recommending. In the past, it could also be difficult to find up-to-date information on the internet that was interesting. You'd have to sift through Google results or rely on the main media websites like CNN or ESPN. Today, you can just hit up the main Digg page that lists all of the "hot" stories in the Diggscape. In essence, Digg has created a very active site and dedicated user base thanks to it's ability to make sharing preferences easier.

Now, you're probably not planning on making your church's website into the next Digg, but there is a clear lesson to be learned here: People tend not to use things that are unclear or difficult. So when we look at our sites, we want to make sure it is easily usable for the average user. Are navigation menus clearly organized? Is key information in a logical place? Do the features you may have added to the site, such as maps, Flash animations and podcasts, make the site easier to use, or are they too complicated to be useful for the average visitor? If you have dynamic content, is it easy enough for the church staff to use? Make sure to take your audience into consideration here as well, as the usability for a site may be different for a group of teenagers than it is for a group of 40-somethings.

If we take these usability factors into consideration when we put our church websites together, then it is less likely that we will have to do major reworkings on the site in the near future, thus lengthening the site's redesign cycle.