The One-Tap Test: A Website That Gets to the Point
Our new monthly One-Tap Test starts at a famous Maine lobster shack, which isn't playing hard to get.
There's a particular moment that happens every summer in Maine. You're hungry, someone mentions lobster, and suddenly you're trying to figure out where to go and whether the place is even open.
For our first One-Tap Test, we headed to Five Islands Lobster Co. in Georgetown. You don't need a website to convince you to go. You're already sold. You just need to get there.
And the website understands that.
Open it on your phone and the first thing you see is one big, obvious button: Directions.
Not "Explore Our Story." Not "Discover the Experience." Just Directions.
Tap it, and you're off to Google Maps. Pretty hard to mess that up.
That's the One-Tap Test: Can someone visiting your website do the thing they came there to do without having to think about it?
For Five Islands, the answer is getting there. They don't take reservations, so a giant Book Now button would be about as useful as a lobster with a driver's license.
The site also makes the hours easy to find, which matters in Maine, where "Are you open?" can depend on the season, the weather, and the day of the week.
I'd make the phone number a little easier to find, too. If you're sitting in the car with a hungry family, those may be the only two questions you have: Where are you, and can I call?
That's the bigger lesson. Your website doesn't need to show off everything it can do. It needs to make the most important thing easy.
For a lobster shack, that might be Directions. For an inn, Book. For a plumber, Call.
Find your one thing. Then make it impossible to miss.