Continuous Improvement is for everyone

In general terms, continuous improvement (CI) is a meaningful, ongoing investment in refining and improving a website over time, rather than waiting for a big redesign or rebuild. In practice, it involves having meetings throughout the year to define the next phase of work, delivering it, and then moving on to the next thing.

Done well, it can really maximise a site’s performance, keep it relevant, and mitigate technical and other issues as the site ages.

Traditionally, there have been really important barriers to effective continuous-improvement programmes, often more acutely felt by web teams with smaller budgets.

In a way, the barriers are relatively obvious – budget and bandwidth. There’s a default approach of treating a website as a capital asset and not dedicating ongoing operating expenses to it. Under this model, big changes to UX and design happen all at once (e.g. with a new website) and then it’s just BAU and keeping the lights on.

But like everything, this is changing and I think we’ll see more widespread CI in the coming years.

Improving a site means changing it, and cost remains the biggest barrier to meaningful CI, especially on sites that are technically fragile or complex. But modern web platforms are lowering this barrier, making substantial enhancements more affordable, and lower risk.

Component driven layouts and more site structure in particular, make the most common changes simpler – namely, changes to page structure or layout, or to navigation and information architecture (IA). This is mirrored in the increased amount of web publishing that we see from our clients on modern platforms – they’re just more likely to publish new content, which will inevitably encourage thinking about how the site is working for audiences.

If a site has a clear purpose that can be measured, it’s becoming easier and more affordable to get user data and make informed improvements.

The rapid uptake and accessibility of tools like https://clarity.microsoft.com/, out of the box A/B testing, and on-site surveys are helping teams get a better picture of what’s working and what needs to change. Instead of relying on traditional tools like Google Analytics and leaning soley conversion data for real user insights, web teams can now get quick insights and make user-relevant adjustments.

In the ever-evolving digital wonderland, staying ahead of the curve is more important than ever. Here are a handful of reasons embracing CI is the way forward:

• AI is transforming how the web is structured, discovered, and interacted with — starting with SEO and search.

For example, where traditional SEO methods can be quite labour intensive, AI tools work behind-the-scenes continuously monitoring and adapting to changes in search engine algorithms.

• The pace of innovation is increasing. Getting on board with a CI approach will be rewarding for teams, providing faster iteration cycles and the ability to reflect adaptive thinking and evolving customer needs.

• Continuous improvement will become a core capability, not a nice-to-have.

The context that a website exists in is going to change more rapidly than has been the case for a long time (if ever). This really will force organisations to become more change agile in many ways, including with their website. The risk is that waiting a few years to make substantive changes will make the site feel outdated much more quickly.

If you're keen to chat more about how this approach might best serve your site, get in touch – we love to talk!