Getting your portal to launch - whether it’s a website or an intranet - is a huge accomplishment. Once live, it's time to shift gears from project to maintenance mode. In a perfect world, this transition happens seamlessly. But we’re talking about the real world where after launch, teams are redeployed to focus on new projects or limited resources become a challenge to evolving the site.
In the short term, a well-designed, tested, and developed solution will last without much initial refinement. Yet solutions can quickly erode if usage patterns, user feedback, features, and site performance aren’t monitored for potential enhancements.
Here are seven high impact activities we can today do to boost your portal’s performance immediately:
1. Listening labs
Address these common issues:
- Low conversion rates
- Negative feedback from customers or employees
- Low user adoption / customer dissatisfaction
- High support costs for alternate channels (i.e., customer call centre, help desk)
Observe users as they interact with your live website or intranet to find out what’s not working. Using lightweight tools, we conduct two days of listening lab sessions remotely or in person to explore issues, challenges, and opportunities for your site. Your team can listen to the session as observers, which keeps the feedback impactful and real. Our team analyzes the results and provides actionable recommendations for improvement.
2. Analytics review and configuration
Address these common issues:
- Lack of customer insight
- Low conversion rates
- Negative feedback from customers or employees
- Measuring the wrong user activities
Not sure what users are doing on your site? Are you even measuring the right goals? Are all activities on the site equally valuable? Many clients have Google Analytics or other analytics tools installed, but don't go beyond the basics of measuring traffic, devices, bounce rates, and conversions.
Our UX experts dig into your analytics configuration, grab as much insight as possible, and then configure site analytics more effectively. Evolve your team's use of analytical data into compelling, fact-based internal storytelling about the role of the website or portal and how it supports organizational goals. Analytics can help to guide decisions about future investments, too!
3. Content audit and strategy
Address these common issues:
- Stale, out-of-date or inaccurate content
- Unmanageable content processes
- Content that is not optimized for the web
Out-of-date content is a common problem with websites and intranets. We guide you through our tried and tested content inventory process and determine what to keep, throw away, and refresh. We share best practices with your content authors, including writing tips and how to manage your content team.
4. Roadmap planning
Address these common issues:
- Lack of guidelines and structure for enhancement decisions
- No shared vision for growth
- Lack of stakeholder engagement
Now that the site is live, what should you do? Often teams have a list of features that didn't make the cut before launch, but how do you decide which ones are most important? Who decides?
We will help you prioritize your portal’s enhancements. We have a system for determining each feature’s business alignment, audience impact, and effort to implement. Together with other inputs, we help create a shared vision amongst stakeholders to evolve your portal.
5. A/B testing
Address these common issues:
- Low conversion rates
- Poorly optimized flow
- Lack of evidence to support design changes
A/B testing is the process of refining an interaction with minor changes to isolate potential improvements and determine whether one solution works better than another. When you are in the process of fine-tuning a flow, process, or conversion, A/B testing is a great way to squeeze more value out of your portal. We work within your content management system or use external tools to provide options to users, and then measure the impact of the changes.
6. Performance testing
Address these common issues:
- Slow site performance
- Concerns about peak load or disaster capabilities
Does your site load slowly during high demand times? Are your remote teams struggling to connect? Or are you uncertain how your site will perform under pressure in the event of a crisis?
Habanero’s in-house performance lab uses load agents to isolate issues and make recommendations to improve site performance. Our team may suggest tuning your code, adding hardware, or consolidating environments to resolve essential issues. We can also get your team up-to-speed on how to manage performance testing.
7. Security audit
Address these common issues:
- Lack of backup, recovery and restoration plan
- Concerns about security vulnerability
Prevention, prevention, prevention. While a system is never iron clad, constant evaluation of your current security concerns, infrastructure, and applications is highly recommended. It’s a good idea to conduct penetration testing, and then discover improvements to prevent security risks. A well-rehearsed backup, recovery, and restoration plan will protect your data and infrastructure across your entire network.
This list of portal boosters gives you and your team some ideas to tackle current challenges, especially if an end-to-end portal redevelopment isn’t on your radar. With one, a few, or all of these activities, we can have an impact on your customer satisfaction, bottom line, and portal performance.
We have the expertise to help you make your portal better. If you’d like to let us help, please get in touch!
