Web design for web designers - what's the approach for customers?
Like any art form, web design means many different things to many different people. What constitutes a "good" web design is a far more contentious topic. What might be as beautiful as a sunset over the Pacific to one person can be an outright blight to the creative sensibilities of another.
The truth is, there are many forums and websites where information is shared on this topic and hotly debated with great frequency. Working in the Internet marketing space myself, I tend to think any site or page that maximizes conversions (read: makes a sale or drives a visitor to perform a desired action) is the best design you can have. But that may be too narrow of a view. Not every purchase or action is done without significant amount of research – so what is the hook to bring someone back to a site, and what makes it memorable or pushes that visitor beyond the tipping point to finally make that conversion? Today we wanted to tackle a very thin slice of this topic as it regards to web design companies themselves. How should a web design company tackle their own web design? What are the most important things to convey in a web design for a potential web design customer? And what influences should be top of mind? Some designers admitted they once felt the need to make their site a billboard advertising all of the possible bells and whistles. As Josh Chan from Chromatix Web Design in Melbourne stated, "We previously designed our own website to be more fanciful and showy with a touch of extravagance or unusual design concepts compared to clients websites." Ron Rule of Primordium echoes Chan's statement, "In the 90s we would 'show off' a little and employ more advanced techniques, but it always backfired because clients assumed we were too expensive. Today, clean & simple is the most effective, so we employ that line of thinking on our own site AND our clients." Kurt Elster, principal at ethercycle.com categorizes these sites as 'Awesome but useless'. He pointed out, "Some designers get so caught up in the cool-factor of a new technology, such as keyframes in HTML5, that they create a vanity site that is impressive to other web developers but ultimately useless to potential clients. In the late '90s these sites were always Flash and usually came with unnecessarily complicated navigation." Some designers find a general philosophical difference between developing their own site versus that of a client. "This is no different than the way a mechanic might work on their own car over a clients. It really depends on the relationship you have with your client and their expectations. Its not uncommon to have a client who wants the very best on a shoestring budget, which is obviously not possible," said Justing Hammack, founder of Pungle.org. Steve Antisdel of Precept Partners sees the major difference as the amount of control you have over the final product, "Working with clients is always a creative collaboration where we accept the client's preconceptions, preferences, likes and dislikes in coming to a design that's always a compromise, at least to some extent." He continues, "What's changed over time, is that I am less inclined to try to change the client's mind. Of course, I'll gently 'state my case' for design or navigation elements that I know, from experience),will improve the sites usability or functionality, but I won't push the point if the client sees things otherwise." Perhaps even more simplified, Cody Littlewood of RelevanS sees it as a mere matter of business type, "For the most part we are designing for B2C businesses while a web design company is obviously a B2B business. This differentiates in the SEO, the layout, the focal points and many other things. Your audience is different and the audience is one of the most important factors when designing a website. You want a website to cater to the clientele not for the clientele to have to cater to the site." While web design for web designers has historically taken a pretty divergent view from client design, it seems the line that divides the two is growing increasingly thin for many. Many comments we received from designers seemed to reflect this shift in mentality: We too have away from the overuse of flash, heavy animation/imagery and heavy use of jQuery to a clean no frills approach that is easy on the eyes and most importantly – bringing in clients for us…We've come to practice what we preach to our clients. -Chan We've found being in the business for over 15 years the look and feel of sites can, and often do reflect the "taste" of the client, however we stress with all of our clients the same metrics we apply to ourselves. What is the desired and specific action you want your website to trigger? -Jon M. Schickedanz, Imaginary Landscape
Designers share their thoughts on their own sites.
Like any art form, web design means many different things to many different people. What constitutes a "good" web design is a far more contentious topic. What might be as beautiful as a sunset over the Pacific to one person can be an outright blight to the creative sensibilities of another. The truth is, there are many forums and websites where information is shared on this topic and hotly debated with great frequency. Working in the Internet marketing space myself, I tend to think any site or page that maximizes conversions (read: makes a sale or drives a visitor to perform a desired action) is the best design you can have. But that may be too narrow of a view. Not every purchase or action is done without significant amount of research – so what is the hook to bring someone back to a site, and what makes it memorable or pushes that visitor beyond the tipping point to finally make that conversion? Today we wanted to tackle a very thin slice of this topic as it regards to web design companies themselves. How should a web design company tackle their own web design? What are the most important things to convey in a web design for a potential web design customer? And what influences should be top of mind? Some designers admitted they once felt the need to make their site a billboard advertising all of the possible bells and whistles. As Josh Chan from Chromatix Web Design in Melbourne states, "We previously designed our own website to be more fanciful and showy with a touch of extravagance or unusual design concepts compared to clients websites." Ron Rule of NetNitrox echoes Chan's statement, "In the 90s we would 'show off' a little and employ more advanced techniques, but it always backfired because clients assumed we were too expensive." Kurt Elster, principal at EtherCycle categorizes these sites as 'Awesome but useless'. He points out, "Some designers get so caught up in the cool-factor of a new technology, such as keyframes in HTML5, that they create a vanity site that is impressive to other web developers but ultimately useless to potential clients. In the late '90s these sites were always Flash and usually came with unnecessarily complicated navigation."
Some designers find a general philosophical difference between developing their own site versus that of a client. "This is no different than the way a mechanic might work on their own car over a clients. It really depends on the relationship you have with your client and their expectations. Its not uncommon to have a client who wants the very best on a shoestring budget, which is obviously not possible," said Justing Hammack, founder of Pungle. Steve Antisdel of Precept Partners sees the major difference as the amount of control you have over the final product, "Working with clients is always a creative collaboration where we accept the client's preconceptions, preferences, likes and dislikes in coming to a design that's always a compromise, at least to some extent." He continues, "What's changed over time, is that I am less inclined to try to change the client's mind. Of course, I'll gently 'state my case' for design or navigation elements that I know, from experience),will improve the sites usability or functionality, but I won't push the point if the client sees things otherwise."
Perhaps even more simplified, Cody Littlewood of RelevanSi sees it as a mere matter of business type, "For the most part we are designing for B2C businesses while a web design companyis obviously a B2B business. This differentiates in the SEO, the layout, the focal points and many other things. Your audience is different and the audience is one of the most important factors when designing a website. You want a website to cater to the clientele not for the clientele to have to cater to the site." While web design for web designers has historically taken a pretty divergent view from client design, it seems the line that divides the two is growing increasingly thin for many. Many comments we received from designers seemed to reflect this shift in mentality:
- We too have moved away from the overuse of flash, heavy animation/imagery and heavy use of jQuery to a clean no frills approach that is easy on the eyes and most importantly – bringing in clients for us…We've come to practice what we preach to our clients. -Josh Chan
- We've found being in the business for over 15 years the look and feel of sites can, and often do reflect the "taste" of the client, however we stress with all of our clients the same metrics we apply to ourselves. What is the desired and specific action you want your website to trigger? -Jon M. Schickedanz, Imaginary Landscape
- "Today, clean & simple is the most effective, so we employ that line of thinking on our own site AND our clients." – Ron Rule
Obviously, there's not one clear train of thought when polling designers and developers as to their thought process when it comes to internal versus external work, but from those we talked to there seems to be more and more convergence and a focus on SEO, overall simplicity, and conversion. Care to weigh in? Feel free to add a comment or weigh in on our poll above.