Stop showing me your homepage

I haven’t noticed it much before, but it’s becoming a pet peeve once I started paying attention to it.

We LOVE homepages. Like eyes being the key to our souls, our homepage shows who we really are. What we stand for. They turn random visitors to loyal customers. They inspire trust, build an emotional connection, they bind us together… ok ok. You got the picture. Homepages are great.

But once I’m sold. I’m in. I gave you my email. I’m a loyal customer. I go to your site every. single. day. Do I really need to see your homepage again??! Do I actually care that you changed the photo on the frontpage and highlighted another benefit to potential customers? Or most important – do I really have to click the ‘Login’, ‘Go to my app’, ‘Dashboard’ or whatever other link you give me to get started?

No, I don’t. Does showing me your homepage show that you care about me? your customer? That you think about my needs? No. It doesn’t. Many sites figured it out – they just send me straight to where I need to be. The dashboard, the main menu, the portal. Where MY stuff is at. If you go to facebook, gmail, github and a few of those sites that get it, you won’t see their homepage. It sends you straight-in. You’d have to go out of your way to find the homepage. Usually by logging out, or using another browser.

Some sites, however, still show me their homepage on every visit.

Is it really so delightful to see the same homepage every day?

“All your data in one place, at your fingertips” (logentries). Is it really at my fingertips? Not quite…

“Stripe has the features you need.” (stripe). That’s almost true. Where’s the “straight-to-dashboard” feature?

It’s a bad customer experience. You put a hurdle in my way to use your product. Stop doing this.

So to all websites out there – you can already tell if I’m logged-in or not. Just add a line of code that checks and redirects me to the right place if I already have a valid session. It will make your customers feel happy and welcome and get to the stuff they need faster. It shows that you think about the customer. That you pay attention and make their experience as smooth and as clear as possible. Those customers will be so happy, that they will then refer their friends to your new shiny homepage.