It all matters

Interesting day at work. Sitting quietly, well, listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, so I was entirely quiet. An email comes in with the the red-exclamation-point-of-doom.

"Why do we have an app for ___, but not for ___?"

Why?

Why.

Because we never thought about our universe.

Because we didn't build the one, so we can't be responsible for not building the other.

But what about all the other ____'s that exist, but don't have an _____ to compliment them? What about the guests who come to us via _____ but all our work is built for _____ instead.

Hmm. And what about the hand-off between the homepage and _______. What do the user's expect to see when they get to that page?

Well this sucks. We spend all this time building great _____s and they don't work because [ someone else, ANYONE ELSE ] didn't complete the thought. What would the customer expect? What would they need once they click that link? Will my site generate enough positive business results to maintain my employment?

All good questions.

Here's the upshot of today, boys and girls. It is not an inconvenience to work on two sites that make up one customer experience.

It is not intrusive or "a power grab" to talk to other groups about where they pick up the customer experience. It is not "their job" to be concerned with the customer's experience. The customer does not perceive "we" or "they" - to the user, it's just us.

So look at your blind alley's and dead-ends. Admit that your link should take them to an interior page rather than a landing page. Confess that your menu system is repetitive and pare it down. Did you know that when faced with too many choices (especially when user is unsure what they are seeking), the most common choice is to exit. True. Ask Susan Weinshenk. It's in her book, "Neuro Web".

Large organizations have large digital footprints. It's easy to put up walls and defend your castle and ignore everything outside your castle walls. It's easy, but it is very, very stupid. No customer in the world has ever said, "the _____ section was great, but when I clicked in to the _____'s area it all went to crap."

They just say "that site stinks".

Fix it.