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Business objectives versus user needs
Okay Peeps, lets fight it out. Which is more important, meeting users needs or fulfilling business objectives? Let me know below.
Comments
If the business has a well developed plan then the objectives should become some of the user's needs on the website itself.
I guess what is important is that the two are not just balanced, but considered at the same time and melded into one.
As web designers and user experience experts I would imagine we will see a decent number of people standing beside user needs.
Business objectives generally consist of making money, making money, and making money. Which sounds really cruel and greedy but it's also realistic and if all of the aforementioned objectives are not met then the business ceases to exist. No business = no users to please. Your business can (sadly) continue to operate without putting effort into user needs. I.E. AT&T and 95% of ISPs.
I half agree with @BorisKourt yes you need to consider business objectives for the site, they are extremely important to the existence of the site and yes maybe you can push objectives relevant to the business onto the customer (moral ideals etc), however, I would say that a site that does not consider the objectives of the user at all will fail miserably. If anything I would say that user objectives should be taken on by the company.
No business = no users to please.
This to me is wrong, no business to me means a large unsatisfied market waiting to be tapped by a company that is willing to listen to it's customers. But they should only listen to a point after all there is the business prime directive, make some money.
At the end I would say both should be near identical but from differing viewpoints. The customer wishes to get a service, the company wishes to provide said service the overall objective and need is one. Satisfy that need as easily as possible for the user and provider and you will gain that business and possibly business based on the service you provide, and the business can feel satisfied that they have completed their objective with ease for themselves.
If you look at an example, an ecommerce site, for instance, the ability to sell products through the website would be a likely business objective, whilst the finding out detailed information about a product or being able to compare products are the sorts of things users would typically look to do.
A company 'may' argue that in this situation the ability to sell the products is most important, but the reality is the success of the website lies in satisfying both the business objectives and users' needs.
So when we sense this sort of misalignment in a client situation, what do we do? Keep quite and pray the check clears before the client fall victim to his or her own poor business planning? Advocate for the user as much as reasonably possible? Conduct research to illustrate the misalignment? Refuse the contract on ethical grounds?
And there's a whole spectrum here. An established restaurant with no web presence want to develop a site. The owner believes for whatever reason that publishing the menu on the site will reduce foot-traffic and thus cut down on revenue vs. a menu-less site.
Or you find a literal snake oil salesman using fear mongering, junk science, and black hat marketing to part fools from their money with great alacrity. He wants to move his pitch online, and he wants to keep it just as slimy in the new medium. The business model is based on taking advantage of the customer. But he makes good money doing it and doesn't want to hear any lip from a punk-ass web designer like you.
The reality is of course somewhere between these 2 extremes, but I don't think we can simply say "they're the same thing, really" and wash our hands of the issue.
There are probably countless of examples of how an experience has been modified to cater for business objectives, however the one that comes to my mind is a supermarket.
If we were to approach designing a supermarket from a user point of view surely the milk, bread and regular items customers require would be near the front and easy to grab and go? But they aren't, and thats due to the business objective of increasing the number of items in a persons trolley.
In order to get milk you have to pass all the chocolates and sweets and then when you get to the checkout there are more temptations with magazines and more lollies.
I believe 'realistic' business objectives need to come first. They are the reason for the website existence, the user experience is probably the most important as a method of achieving these objectives.
I also believe that this is where the challenge is... How do you design the most delightful user experience whilst achieving the business objectives???
I've also seen stores do a "convenience" set up right near the check out with common items like milk, bread, and eggs grouped together. So even in the supermarket you can find some user advocacy going on. I'd be interested to know how effective or successful such a set up is considering it deviates so strongly from the mental model of the shopping experience.