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I just began working at a small boutique where the owner wants my “help” with the website. She is enthusiastic and says she wants my creative input, but she is technologically-clueless and full of bad ideas.
She knows on some level that the website is not doing what she wants it to do, but she doesn't understand what it is about the website that is so dysfunctional. While it has some good and usable content, the site is useless (if not detrimental) to the business. Besides being outdated, poorly edited (in style and content), and artless, it is visually and logically disorganized, cluttered, redundant, and extremely challenging to navigate. It needs to be stripped-down and restructured, given a focused approach and a new layout.
The owner doesn’t understand why the site doesn’t generate business (especially when she spent a lot a of money on a flash intro that doesn’t even appear where an “intro” should) and doesn’t understand what she’s doing wrong. Her conclusion is that it must need more stuff. So instead of cleaning and tightening it up, she keeps building on the bad foundation. With my assistance, she wants to add even more new and unnecessary features, which will make things more confusing and complicate. She even expects to have a complete and live online inventory -- which is both impossible and unmaintainable at this time.
I need to help my boss better understand the situation so that I can give our website the makeover it needs. My goal is for her to “get it” enough that she not only relents, but actually wants me to clean it up and maybe even gets excited about it. How do I approach this discussion without offending her and steer it in the right direction?
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