Okay, so I’m not much of a handyman. I enjoy tinkering in the woodshop, but my accomplishments are more likely to include bending some perfectly good nails, gluing my hand to a tabletop, and starting a small fire. As much as I admire the work of master carpenters, I’m just not at that level. (Get it?)

Over the years, though, even a novice sawdust-maker like me has come to appreciate the smart woodworker’s creed: “Measure twice, cut once”. It’s critically important to make sure that everything is in order before you put saw to wood. Many times, you only get one shot at it. (A too-short board, as it turns out, will always be too short no matter how many times you cut it.)

Last week, I was reminded of that sage advice despite the fact that I was miles away from my woodshop. I had the privilege of delivering a webinar with co-presenter Amy Schade from the Nielsen Norman Group. Amy and I were asked to give a presentation on “10 Mistakes Your Website is Making (And How to Fix Them)” .

Amy kicked things off by providing a few examples of how things turn out badly without proper planning and insight. She went on to provide examples of mistakes such as “Believing people read what you write” and “Blocking progress”. Each example pertained to an important design or content consideration, and each was illustrated with a real world example.

Soon, it was my turn. I managed to unglue my hand from the conference room table and advance to my first slide. The first mistake I described was “Not taking a walk in your users’ shoes”. Over the past several years, web applications have become more powerful, more distributed, and more complex. Unfortunately, while an application’s end-users are commonly strewn across the globe, operational IT metrics are often myopically focused on the infrastructure – an increasingly poor proxy for true end-user experience.

Next, I described the mistake of conducting functional and acceptance testing using only a subset of the web browsers that the application’s actual audience chooses. The fact is that web browser choice is increasing and an even treatment of “standards” by these browsers is decreasing. The assumption that “if it’s good in one major browser, it’s probably good in the others” is costing a lot of businesses money right now. These losses stem from abandoned shopping carts, escalating call center and operational costs, and brand damage.

Finally, I described the mistake of “Not preparing for success”. This happens when the owners of a web application fail to measure the likely experience of end-users when the application is under load. Just because the database doesn’t fall over, it doesn’t mean that real end-users are going to wait around for an extra 30 seconds to read a news article or search for a hot product.

It was great fun to present with Amy, and the webinar was very well attended. I think that there were two things that made this presentation particularly engaging and effective:

1. I didn’t share any of my best practices in shop safety.
2. The tips covered both non-technical and technical aspects of web applications.

The simple fact is that both the design and technical aspects of a website have to work. To me, “measure twice” relates to the need to measure both of these critical dimensions of user experience. Who hasn’t experienced the frustration of a poorly designed website or one that is chock full o’ broken links and errors?

Go ahead and check out the webinar and see if you agree. Whether you do or whether you don’t, you’re always welcome to drop by my shop and tell me your thoughts – just follow the smoke. Or you could just drop in a comment below. It’s probably safer that way.