What ‘Zoom Fatigue’ Can Teach Business Owners About Website Design

Congratulations, you made it past January.

I’d have laughed at you if you told me last January I’d be running a UX agency mainly through a screen. I can’t say ‘it feels normal’ now. It doesn’t, and I’ll never say that as I like to do face-to-face handshakes.

But I am amazed by the strength we’ve all shown. So many people in my network have found workarounds, turned competition into opportunity and kept going.

There’s just one thing I can’t get my head around.

The ‘Zoom fatigue’ thing.

Instead of complaining about it, we should learn what it can tell us about how our customers see our businesses.

First It Was a ‘Party’.
Then It Was… ‘Zoom Fatigue’.

Remember when we were all in it together in April?

We were banging pots and pans out of the window on a Thursday for the heroes, and posting funny photos of our desk, dog and kids in our WFH office.

We were in shock, making the best we could of it.

Sharing drinks over Zoom was the only way of creating a bubble we could hide in and block out the chaos for a while. It was one big Zoom party that made it all feel less scary.

Summer. We Thought We Were in the Clear.

Late summer to early autumn many of us got back to something close to normal routines, ish. Some were back in the office, others just happy to be back in a job after furlough.

Then November’s second lockdown hit.

Back online we went. Some never got their jobs back. Suddenly, it wasn’t so much of a party and we weren’t all sharing drinks over Zoom.

It was a bit like going back to the party the next day with a hangover.

There Is No ‘Zoom Fatigue’.
Part of the Problem Is User Experience Fatigue
What’s the ‘Zoom fatigue’ thing all about?

If you ask me, it’s partly about poorly designed experiences.

The reality is that it’s not Zoom we’re tired of. We’re just tired of being put through complicated online experiences that take up our time without giving us the value we hoped for.

In Great Zoom Calls, the Technology is Invisible.
In Great Websites, the User Experience Design is Invisible.

As Zoom users, what we wanted was hassle-free experiences that gave us what we needed with as few moving parts as possible.

What we got was mute disasters, poor connections and calls longer than they needed to be. Don’t blame Zoom. Blame the presenter that didn’t design the experience around your needs.

Bad Presenters Design Presentations That Are About Them. Badly Designed Websites Do the Same.

Business owners need to realise that their website isn’t there to look nice and serve their own business needs. It’s there to serve the goals and pains of the customer.

To do that, the user journey needs to be so smooth that it’s almost invisible.

By Designing Websites for the Needs of the Customer, Business Owners Can Avoid the ‘Zoom Fatigue’ Effect

Filling the pipeline, conversion and bounce rate, net promoter score, cost-per-lead customer lifetime value. All of these metrics suffer if businesses let their customers develop ‘website fatigue’.

Making sure your website avoids that means:

• Giving your customers content that’s relevant to THEM.
• Arranging it in a user-friendly, valuable way for THEM.
• With the RIGHT technology that won’t let them down.

I’m Getting Back on Zoom. It Won’t Be a Party, but It Will Be a Useful Experience

Myself, Fintech star Nim Haas and Cardstream’s Chief Product and Marketing Officer Gary Pine will be getting back on Zoom on the 18th of February with Dunk Events to talk about how you can do more this year with a tight marketing budget.

If that sounds useful to you, you can get a free ticket to join us.

Or get in touch with me if you’d like my team to run a full website audit. We might have to chat over Zoom at some point, but we promise we won’t take all day.

Thanks, and all the best in 2021.

Lee