The present state of the average website needs to be rethought. Most websites still provide the same content on a page, whether you are a new visitor searching for information or a frustrated returning user coming back to search for content you couldn’t find yesterday. In 2023, with the massive power of Drupal 10 and some creative thinking, we hope to provide a better way.
Dynamic, personalised content shouldn't require abandoning privacy
We believe personalisation is a perfect solution for government and privacy-focused websites. These sites are often massive in scale, with a handful of “intended users” or personas. While a conversion is rarely a purchase, it might be a download or registration. Other success metrics can often be tracked, such as engagement or usability. If there is a desire to improve these results, personalisation is a great tool to have in your belt.
The challenge here is that the user tracking a for-profit company can use to make sure a customer is who we think they are: a doctor or a patient, for example, often requires more persistent data storage and processing than a government wants to deal with.
The tools we have combined to form Convivial do this without shipping content to a data warehouse. That allows us to provide many of the same features as large proprietary DXPs in Drupal. All of the magic of profiling a user is done in the browser. Then the website sends content based on user intent without ingesting personal information.
Getting started is always the hardest part
We handle the technical challenge. Next comes your part. The better our client’s hypotheses are formed about their users, the better the chance of success. We especially want to know user context and how they describe a successful journey.
Sometimes this has never been thought through, and other times there are clearly defined personas and site goals. This makes designing a sustainable solution that delivers results easier and leads to an agile and independent web team.
Start simple when putting pen to paper with persona development. Start with looking at the broad groups of users and their stages in the journey to get the problem you are attempting to solve. For a government agency, for example, a very simple example looks something like this:
| Service Provider (Electrician, Doctor, etc.) | Citizen (Layman, Parent, etc.) | |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Scope of what we regulate | What we do to protect you, statistics |
| Consideration | How regulation benefits a provider, case studies | Programs offered, Video Testimonials |
| Conversion | Training programs, Newsletter | Find a service provider, register for a class |
| Retention | Event or panel participation, surveys | News and events, reports, engagement opportunities |
There isn’t one right way to think about building a website that delivers these results for thousands of users. But it’s helpful to think about who the most important users are. And while a marketing funnel is rarely a linear journey, it’s a good starting point for the stages you should have prepared for your curious web visitor.
This becomes the framework for writing, tagging, and curating content. Now we can look at what a user searches for, reads, and clicks to this show customised content.
Isn't it about time websites got smarter?
