Guest posting by New Jersey-based digital experience strategist Laura Stringer
With input from Carrie Hane, Hilary Marsh and Mark Demeny.
Big companies have big websites. And leaders of those websites are focused more than ever on experience - how visitors move through the site to accomplish whatever they’re trying to do, and how those visitors feel as they do it. Experience is not just a buzzword; it’s a new(-ish) way of thinking about how to serve customers, and it’s top-of-mind with business leaders for many good reasons.
But seldom do I see the same level of care and attention paid to operations, and that’s a shame. Because the best experiences in the world can’t get that way - and certainly can’t stay that way - without top-quality operations.
Distributed ownership equals distributed operations
Operations is that blend of people, process, and technology that drives websites on a daily basis. Hosting the content platform(s), uploading content, the policies governing how to add new functionality, the renewal of domain names. Most of it is not glamorous work. And it can be challenging to convince senior leaders of its importance, especially when they want to see big, obvious improvements (read: new visuals).
On a service blueprint, you might see operational activities drawn neatly in swimlanes. In reality, the picture is far more chaotic: distributed teams working on different pieces of different sections on different platforms. Problems arise with broken communication, inconsistent ways of doing things, disjointed integrations with enterprise platforms, and employees running into all sorts of blockers.
Because operations is a broad term that includes many different types of work, there is seldom centralized attention paid to it. A Marketing department owns the website, but is not resourced to track, govern, or make decisions about many of the foundational elements that make the website run. They’ll work on strategy, focus diligently on design and content, and often not think far past that.
IT manages hosting, product teams create content and populate the CMS, supplemental agencies design and develop features like store locators. And with no clear owner, a lot of work can get sidelined or skipped entirely.
Worst of all, when an operational area costs more (in money or employee time) than it needs to, it saps that budget from improvements that could add value and drive business growth.
Product management for design and functional updates
Websites are not meant to be static things. They evolve over time, with new page types, updated content, changed imagery, new features added. Many of those updates require code changes and deployments.
Without good product management, those updates can incur schedule overruns, high costs, and the dreaded technical debt. Meanwhile, the website starts to wither on the vine, unable to get the improvements it desperately needs.
Companies can get ahead of this by establishing what I call “update agility”. While the term “Agile” conjures visions of a highly-structured methodology with formal meetings and documentation, that’s not necessary here. In fact, that rigidity can bind up non-IT groups who are not used to working with that kind of structure and feel it stifles their creativity.
However, website owners should take some lessons from IT processes and direct a schedule of updates in concert with agencies and IT. That will reduce time-to-market for new features and improvements.
Keeping the updates in small, nimble chunks whenever possible helps avoid the behemoth projects that are more likely to fail, and helps keep costs reasonable. Finally, a standard process eliminates a lot of unnecessary coordination and administrative work, freeing more senior employees to take on more value-add work.
Supporting CMS users
Unless you’re using a system that automatically populates the website with content, the content is being placed on pages by people: HR reps, product managers, sales reps, writers, office managers. Many of them are comfortable with technology, but not all of them.
When a content contributor can’t edit content smoothly, they may give up entirely, leading to outdated content. Or - possibly worse - they may attempt to make it up as they go along, with wildly inconsistent results.
Supporting CMS users with good component UI, training and documentation, and easy-to-follow guidelines will ensure that all the great designs already in place get to look their best, while also providing high-quality content. As a bonus, it helps employees work more efficiently and move on to other tasks more quickly.
Technical architecture and maintenance
IT is like the power company: If they’re doing their job really well, no one thinks about them. But the second there’s a problem, everyone turns to them to fix it.
I’d like to propose we start showing IT some more love - in both resources and appreciation. Not only do they own the critical infrastructure pieces that keep a website running, but their work directly impacts experience.
For example, IT is usually responsible for registering domain names and setting up the server rules for URLs. When your landing page is “domain.com/dir1/dir2/campaign.html?cid=123456” but “domain.com/campaign” gets you there - that’s because of IT.
When the site runs slowly, hindering user experience (and SEO value), there is some combination of code and server capacity at play - that’s technology territory. And IT are the people keeping customers’ data secure, maintaining brand trust.
Technology pieces are easy to overlook, partly because they’re hidden away from view, and because most of us marketing and experience types don’t actually understand everything we’re looking at. But paying some attention - and budget - to technical considerations will directly benefit the experience of the website.
Operations and Experience are intertwined
There are so many operational considerations - some of them technical, some of them related to governance - that go into making a website experience top-notch. It would be impossible to list them all thoroughly in a single article. Some are best addressed when creating the initial structure of the site, while others relate to ongoing maintenance.
And this goes both ways: decisions made around experience impact operations. For example, having the design agency put together a pattern library, rather than just a set of pretty page designs, will smooth several aspects of operations for the life of the site.
The best time to get ahead of all of this is before a website launches. Incorporate operational considerations and planning into the project, just like visual design and development.
If the site’s already live and there are no plans for major redesigns soon, website owners can still address these items as part of their website’s roadmap. I’ve created digital roadmaps with more technical and governance initiatives than design, because that foundation is so crucial. Operations are just as important as experience and deserve to be considered and resourced just as much.
Learn more about digital experience and operations
Laura has previously written a how-to-guide to Building A Content Contributor Community.
You can also meet Laura in person at our CMS Expert peer group meetings on the East Coast.