Benefits of a Core Purpose
Thursday, 11 March 2010
For any website to be a success it must have a clear and defined core purpose.
Originating in the business goals of the organisation, this purpose is the central theme for the website and the baseline for any decisions on work priorities or functionality. Each time an item is requested to be added to the website, the core purpose can be used as a measurement on whether it will be relevant and suitable.
The core purpose is unlikely to change much over time and will bring focus and discipline to the whole project.
For a hotel website, the core purpose may be to make the process of booking a room easier. For church websites it may be to make visiting the church for the first time easier. For small businesses the core purpose may be to inform users of the services they provide or to buy their products.
Whatever the core purpose is it should distil down into an easy to understand purpose statement. For example;
“To make coming to church easier for the new people; while allowing the church members to stay informed of what’s happening.”
“To increase the number of room bookings by making the process obvious and easy”
“To provide the essential information about our gas central heating services and increase online sales”
This statement defines the primary reason for the website and helps to identify the most important needs and tasks of visitors.
As you examine the items in the development work plan you can then ask the question, does this functionality help to meet the core purpose of the website? If the answer is yes then these tasks can be prioritised. If the answer is no then other work can be prioritised over them.
While there will always be additional drivers and requirements beyond this primary purpose most of the time these will be better served by living up to this statement.
For any website to be a success it must have a clear and defined core purpose.
Originating in the business goals of the organisation, this purpose is the central theme for the website and the baseline for any decisions on work priorities or functionality. Each time an item is requested to be added to the website, the core purpose can be used as a measurement on whether it will be relevant and suitable.
The core purpose is unlikely to change much over time and will bring focus and discipline to the whole project.
For a hotel website, the core purpose may be to make the process of booking a room easier. For church websites it may be to make visiting the church for the first time easier. For small businesses the core purpose may be to inform users of the services they provide or to buy their products.
Whatever the core purpose is it should distil down into an easy to understand purpose statement. For example;
“To make coming to church easier for the new people; while allowing the church members to stay informed of what’s happening.”
“To increase the number of room bookings by making the process obvious and easy”
“To provide the essential information about our gas central heating services and increase online sales”
This statement defines the primary reason for the website and helps to identify the most important needs and tasks of visitors.
As you examine the items in the development work plan you can then ask the question, does this functionality help to meet the core purpose of the website? If the answer is yes then these tasks can be prioritised. If the answer is no then other work can be prioritised over them.
While there will always be additional drivers and requirements beyond this primary purpose most of the time these will be better served by living up to this statement.
posted by dN@redNests at
15:54
