I was speaking with a colleague recently, who was telling me about having his car detailed. He takes the car to a place where they claim to deliver “psychological detailing.” When he asked what this means, the detailer explained that they go through the car and polish and shine areas that you wouldn’t ordinarily expect. They carefully clean dozens of little things on the inside and outside of the car. All around and under the door handles. The tops of the wiper blades. The inside of the air vents as far as the eye can see. The premise is that while you don’t really take note of the many individual areas they have cleaned, you do get a general sense of the overall attention to detail, and that they have delivered excellent service.

Psychological detailing can just as easily apply to websites as well. Checking your web site regularly to find and tweak the various elements of the user interface and resolve other little problems that most people don’t really notice builds an overall sense of a quality web site that promotes repeat visitation. As people interact with the site more and more, they develop an impression that they have had an excellent customer experience — that this is a company that cares about its customers, even if they aren’t exactly sure why.

Iterative design through rapid prototyping can help to achieve this level of “psychological detailing” for your site. The rapid prototyping process consists of creating rough web site mock-ups for your customers’ approval. This helps to reduce the risk of later dissatisfaction, leads to less complex systems, and provides useful feedback and dialog about what your customers really need. With each subsequent prototype iteration, we uncover additional issues. Some of these issues might be considered major problems, but others exist at a purely subliminal level. Leaving them alone might not be immediately noticeable to the user, but fixing them helps to provide that perception of finely crafted detail that is indicative of a high quality product.