When the obvious problem isn’t the problem

A lot of digital work starts with an answer: We need a new website. The homepage needs redesigning. The messaging needs updating. Add calls to action for conversion. We need better SEO.

Sometimes those answers are right. But they also have a habit of becoming the problem we’re trying to solve before we’ve spent any time understanding what’s truly going on.

A website isn’t generating enough enquiries, so attention turns to the calls to action. A product is difficult to use, so the interface gets redesigned. A business is difficult to understand, so someone rewrites the homepage.

All of these things are reasonable, but they only actually work if we’ve diagnosed the problem correctly.

Symptoms make convincing problems

One reason this happens is that the visible problem is usually the easiest one to describe.

If people aren’t clicking a button, the button looks like the problem. If a website feels dated, its design looks like the problem. If customers don’t understand an offer, the words look like the problem.

But a weak call to action could also mean there isn’t enough reason to act. A dated website might be exposing a business that has outgrown the way it presents itself. Confusing copy might be the result of an offer that nobody inside the business can explain clearly either.

Changing the visible thing can improve the surface without changing very much underneath.

The website is often where the problem becomes visible

Websites are particularly good at exposing this. They (should) force a business to make decisions about what it does, who it is for, what matters most, and what somebody should do next.

When those things are clear, designing the website becomes considerably easier. When they’re not, the website inherits that ambiguity.

At that point, treating the website purely as a design - or writing - problem misses something important. The website might not be creating the confusion, it might simply be revealing it.

With Errol Donald, clarifying how his practice should be understood came before redesigning the website. His body of work was already impressive. The missing piece was a structure that helped prospective clients understand how that experience related to the services he offered.

Signs it might be worth looking deeper

There isn’t a checklist that will tell you what the real problem is. If there were, you probably wouldn’t need to investigate it at all.

But there are recurring patterns that suggest the most obvious explanation might not be enough.

Patterns to watch out for

• You keep making changes, but the result doesn’t shift. Individual improvements make sense, but collectively they don’t change much.
• Different people have different explanations for what’s wrong. The website needs redesigning; the messaging needs fixing; marketing needs more traffic; sales needs better leads.
• The proposed solution keeps getting bigger. What started as a page change gradually turns into a redesign, repositioning exercise, or rebuild.
• Something looks as though it should be working, but isn’t. The ingredients seem to be there – traffic, a credible offer, decent design – but people still aren’t taking the expected next step.
• Decisions are mostly being made on opinion. There are plenty of ideas about what to change, but little shared understanding of why.
• You’ve already tried the obvious fix. And the problem is still, stubbornly, hanging in there.
• The conversation moves too quickly to execution. There’s lots of discussion about solutions, but much less agreement about what is actually happening.

None of these proves there’s a deeper problem – sometimes the obvious explanation (or solution) really is the right one. But they are useful reasons to investigate before committing to another solution.

Diagnosis changes the work

This distinction matters because different diagnoses lead to very different pieces of work.

Low conversion could mean the journey needs simplifying, the proposition isn’t convincing, the wrong people are arriving, there isn’t enough proof, or even that the next step asks for too much commitment... Or the button really could just be in the wrong place.

The point isn’t that every apparently simple problem has a hidden strategic explanation. That would just be another assumption. It’s that it’s worth finding out before committing to the solution.

Often, a relatively small amount of investigation changes the question from “How should we redesign this?” to “What is actually stopping this from working?” (and "What does working actually mean?")

Once that question has a useful answer, the work tends to become much clearer.

The answer might be smaller than the proposed solution

This is one of the most useful consequences of starting with diagnosis.

There’s a tendency to assume that investigating a problem will uncover something bigger and lead to more work. It can do the opposite.

• If the problem really is one confusing page: Fix the page.
• If customers understand the offer but lack trust: Improve the evidence rather than rethink the whole proposition.
• If the website is sound but attracting the wrong audience: Rebuilding it won’t solve the problem.

Understanding what’s actually going on gives you permission not to change everything else.

Good digital work isn’t measured by how much gets redesigned, rebuilt, or rewritten – it’s measured by whether the right thing gets better.

Diagnose the website problem before choosing the fix

Starting with diagnosis doesn’t mean collecting every piece of data or commissioning a large audit. It means gathering enough evidence to distinguish between the explanations that would lead you to do different things.

I’d start with a few questions.

What should be happening?

“More enquiries” needs a little more definition. Enquiries for what, from whom, and of what quality? A website might also need to support referrals, help existing customers or make a complex buying decision easier. Until you know what the website needs to do, it’s difficult to say where it is falling short.

Can the next step actually happen?

Try the important routes yourself, including on a phone. Submit a test enquiry and check that it reaches the right person. Follow the booking, email and telephone links. Check what happens after someone gets in touch. A working success message isn’t proof that the enquiry was delivered.

Compare that with what your reporting says. If genuine enquiries arrive but analytics records none, you have a measurement question to resolve before drawing conclusions about conversion.

Are the right people arriving?

Look at the pages and searches bringing people in, and compare them with the customers and work the business wants. Little relevant traffic, lots of unsuitable traffic and relevant visitors who don’t enquire are different situations. More traffic won’t necessarily resolve the last two.

What do people need to understand or believe?

Listen to the questions that recur in sales conversations. Watch someone unfamiliar with the business try to find the right service and work out what to do next. Are they missing an explanation, relevant evidence, an indication of fit or a manageable next step? Treat those observations as clues to investigate, rather than assuming one person represents every customer.

Which explanation fits the evidence?

Put the plausible explanations alongside what you know. What supports each one? What would challenge it? Which small check or change would help you learn more?

You might discover a broken enquiry route, a page that attracts the wrong audience, or a proposition that people cannot understand. Those findings imply different work. Once the problem is clear, choose how much of the website actually needs changing around that finding.

Start one step earlier

There’s an understandable pressure to move quickly into making things.

Making feels like progress. A redesigned page is visible. New copy can be approved. A new website can be launched. Diagnosis is less tangible – it can feel like something standing between the problem and the work.

But the purpose isn’t to make projects slower or more complicated. It’s to make the work that follows more useful.

Sometimes the investigation confirms exactly what everyone suspected and you can move ahead with more confidence. Sometimes it changes the solution. And occasionally, it shows that the thing everyone was preparing to fix wasn’t really the problem at all.

Before deciding what should change, it’s worth starting one step earlier:

What makes us think this is the problem?

For an initial outside view of an existing website, a free Website Check can help establish whether the question needs further investigation. It’s a conversation, rather than a promise to diagnose a complex problem in half an hour.