A List Apart just published a wonderful blog post called “Evaluating Ideas.” In it, Eileen Webb describes and shows a wonderful way to think about what content and features go on your site. Every idea you have has meet the four following criteria:
- What the business needs.
- What the user wants to do.
- What is appropriate for the website.
- What is sustainable for the organization.
This is a fantastic way to evaluate your ideas for your website, and the full article describes how to apply them. For example, the “sustainable” circle prevents this:
A weekly podcast plan that only lasts a month, lovingly crafted team profiles for two of the 28 staff, a community calendar whose last event was held in 2013—we’ve all seen plans like this fall apart. This circle helps me push on questions of time and energy without sounding so, well, pushy.
Read the whole thing and then take a look at your site. Good luck 😉