A really cool web design is great, but if it interferes with a visitor’s experience, then your design is rendered useless.  Here’s where I’ve seen design interfere with experience.

Clunky Code. The thing about design is that there is such coding precision required to insure that the design appears perfect. The problem you often run into is that it doesn’t layout correctly on all browsers. Then you may run into accessibility issues when font sizes need to change.

Poor Navigation. You arrive and have nowhere to go. I like to use the word experience when it comes to websites. When you arrive, I want you to walk down a particular path while I tell you about my business.

Poor Performance. Quite frankly, sometimes a design take too long to load. You have a good looking site, but my browser is hung up trying to download all your images and widgets.

When building a website, you’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of your visitor and with a fresh perspective, visit your site and see if you know what to do when you arrive. Are you able to find the information you need and can you find it quickly?

That’s our thought for the day.

I’m working feverishly on my resume site. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues for your feedback and advice.

Today was therapy day. I had to rehash my history at my old company regarding the company website. As I was going through the history (thanks to WayBack). I had a chance to reflect on why companies need websites. Here are a few thoughts.

The website philosophy, at my old job, that I followed was that websites needed to communicate the benefits and values of your company to your current and potential client. You had to arrive at a website and know where to go in order to get the information that you need.

What made websites so perfect was that you could get your company’s information to your client instantly and at very little cost, compared to printing thousands of brochures, and the reprinted of thousands of brochures, when your information was outdated.

Whenever I build a website, the first impression that I want you to have is:

1. A clear understand of who we are as a company.
2. Elements that help you remember who you are – Branding.
3. Where to go next.

That third element was what I spent most of my time convincing clients that they needed to spend time one. It’s simple, “Now that I’m on your website, what do you want me to do?” As a result, I wound up drafting my proposal to clients and doing it for them, because it was so time consuming.

Unfortunately, more time is spent talking design and how a site looks as opposed to what story do I want to tell a client and what path will they follow to get the story told.

My job as a designer was less about how pretty the site was, but more about how a customer interacts with your website.

Take a moment and look at your website. Objectively ask yourself if it is effectively organized is it and then ask can visitors find the information that you want them to find.

Case Study

If you need help, give me a ring and let’s talk.

I’ve spent about a week going over the versatility of Word Press. I’m finding that there’s a lot of free-lance work revolving around Word Press design and I can see why.

For the lay-person Word Press is an excellent way to build a website. The page functionality makes building a standard no-frills website really easy.

I’ve spent most of today working on the CSS for this blog. My goal was to make it match the rest of my website and you can see that I’ve pretty much been able to pull that off.  I had to add some new design elements but that’s getting to be more and more easier.

Now I’m ready to help you. If you need a customized Word Press template, let’s talk.

Alan