If you know these already, great. If you don't, it’s important to identify your organization’s top goals for the site. However your department or organization defines their objectives, is fine - just enumerate them.

Some examples might be...

List them out, and then prioritize them in order of their importance or their potential impact on your bottom line.

Next, collate the user issues. If you don’t know these, it’s time to find out.

These issues may be compiled from whatever current sources you have for customer or end-user input, including:

Now, look for patterns. Look for frequency and level of issue (or stridency) from your users or customers. Is the same major problem showing up in the surveys as you've heard at client conferences? Do some issues upset your users more than others?

Consolidate the list of issues and grievances, and prioritize this list into level of urgency (e.g., Critical, Moderate, and Low).

How are the user issues preventing you from reaching your goals? What additional rewards would solving the user issues get you?

You can get a read on the comparative impact of the issues by setting up a priorities matrix (in Excel or Word). Run the issues down the left column on the “Y” axis, and your goals along the top, on the “X” axis. If you’ve focused sufficiently on your goals, they should fit on a single page.

Then, assign a numerical score (from 1 to 5) based on how much impact the solution of the issue would have on the goal. In other words, if you fix the nasty navigation problem users have complained about, can that help you (potentially) reach one or more of your top goals?

Create a Priority Score in the last column by adding the various impact scores.Your list might look something like this….

The final Priority Scores for “solving the issues” may surprise you. It will become clear that some of your issues are much more critical to more issues than others. Many times, a single fix can have multiple rewards – fixing that user issue therefore becomes a top priority.

A priority matrix can be an important tool in the redesign process. You may need to adjust your priorities based on other factors (such as likely resources to be consumed by the fix, or time criticality of other issues), but it can be the first, important step in setting and achieving your goals in your next Website redesign.