Web design principle 4
Apply self-regulation and learn from the results

“You don’t have a slug problem, you have a duck deficiency.”

Bill Mollison

The permaculture principle of applying self-regulation and accepting feedback means that errors and problems, as well as positive feedback, are the best indicators of which areas you need to improve. The aim is to recognize and use feedback as an opportunity to create a system that is as self-regulating as possible. The less need there is to intervene in a functioning system, the better: this means less work.

• Think of your website as an ongoing project that is constantly evolving, not as an end product.
• View the problem as a solution. Ideally, this approach will solve two problems. Take a chaotic website structure, for example. If you restructure the information architecture, this automatically improves the site’s search engine ranking. So creating a logical structure not only resolves the main issue but also has a positive long-term side effect of improving the ranking.
• If you want to make improvements and increase the potential of your website, ask real users to evaluate your website through user tests. The most useful feedback comes from active users and will help you to identify untapped potential and areas for improvement. For more practical tips on this topic, read our blog article: Usability testing made easy.

• Integrate user feedback options into your website, such as feedback questionnaires or a comment function.
• Transparent communication throughout your web project: Addressing problems quickly and openly makes it easier to resolve them. The best way to do this is through regular retrospectives. The aim of such team meetings is to continuously and constructively improve collaboration on a project.