Functionality

Establishing a clear framework for how your customers will engage with your business via the website is essential, it not only affects their overall experience but it is the foundation of their interaction with your business. So let’s identify the specific functionalities that the site should have on both desktop and mobile devices.

What specific information do you wish to gather from your customers through forms? Understanding the types of content you want to collect is a great start for creating effective forms that will meet your business needs whilst being sympathetic to your customers interaction experience. Whether you are looking to obtain basic contact details or more detailed insights about preferences and feedback, identify the exact data that will help you better serve your customers and improve your business. Think about the essential information you need and what information would be ‘nice to have’, you don’t want a 10 question form to be your first point of interaction with your customer as they are not likely to complete it.

Another great functionality that we can add is tracking customer clicks on specific buttons, along with form submissions and conversion rates – uncovering valuable insights into user behaviour, preferences, and overall engagement with our website. Understanding where customers are focusing their attention allows us to identify which features are most appealing or effective, as well as areas that may require enhancements or adjustments. This data not only guides our design and marketing strategies but also helps us to optimise the user experience, ultimately leading to increased satisfaction and higher conversion rates. We will cover tracking and how to set this up further in Module 4.

If you’re planning to sell directly from your website, you have several options for collecting payments from your customers.

If your offerings are limited to just a few key products, you may find that a simple checkout form is more than enough to meet your needs, allowing for a straightforward transaction process without the complexities of a full e-commerce site. You can use a provider such as Paypal or Stripe to manage the complexities of actually processing and handling credit card information.

Alternatively maybe an e-commerce store is the right choice for you, think about your specific needs and what you want to offer your customers. If your business requires shipping options to deliver products directly to buyers, if you need to provide multiple product choices such as varying sizes or colour selections, and if you have to manage tax calculations for different regions, then implementing an e-commerce solution is likely the best way to go.

We will cover the ‘how’ of setting up the functionality in Module 3, for now we want to create a clear brief to follow so that we don’t end up overwhelmed and drowning in options once we start to build the site!