How to Make Your Next Project Really Work

February 22, 2010

Creating a new site, blog or a web app is easy. But most of such new sites created every day do not work.

And there’s a very good reason why.

We start with a new idea, a single objective that the site is going to achieve. But as we progress with the development, we keep adding redundant bits of stuff, and completely unneeded elements.

So as a result, we create something that ends up being too many things, and having so many features it scares everyone away.

Take the social sharing icons on most blogs for example. Some blogs display a huge stack of sharing icons at the end of every post. Such bloat discourages sharing rather than encourage it. The right approach would be to display only what you really know would work. The retweet button anyone?

Next time you embark on a new project:

Think of what annoys you on other sites: and don’t do it on yours just for the sake of following the tradition.

Look at what you have so far: and re-evaluate its usefulness. Is it what the visitors come here looking for?

Don’t lose focus: don’t try to make your site do too many things. The more focused the objective, the better.

Simplify, not complicate: keeping things simple and intuitive is the way to go. The less steps your visitors have to take to get to the info/tool they need, the better.

Now, I don’t want to get redundant here myself. So I’ll let you mull over the above points.

And please, add your thoughts below.

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