As I am working on updating the framework of my site, I have thought about my lack of posts. Which has led me to think about how much my site is relient upon style. When I originally designed this version of the site, I wanted to create something visually captivating, and may have, more or less, missed out on what keeps my visitors here. Content. Eh.

Working with NetSource has taught me that if you are not serving all of your masters simultaneously then sucks to be you. Successful firms the world over are constantly struggling with being visually awesome and providing their customer with what they want, in the end money. Constant focus on the customer proves to be the winning formula, always. This tends to be a point of distress with designers, ‘what does the customer know about design?’. Nada, well generally. And worse, maybe they think they know, and here they are to push all of their ‘design’ ideas on us. It happens. To the best of us.

So your client has poor design ideas, and maybe even rejects your advice. Fact: clean easy to navigate sites, with good colors and contrast, sell themselves. So maybe point out these key steps to success, becuase it is about presenting the content. Right? Chances are you will be able to create something visually appealing and deliver the content. If you are truly doing both correctly it is not Style vs. Substance, it is a 100% blend of the two. I reccommend you pick up Dont Make Me Think by Steve Krug. It shows just how important design is to the succesful delivery of content. In this market, if you are not thinking of your customer and how to succesfully deliver a wining recipe then its a ticking clock. The customer wins, you win.

So long story short I hope to post more here, what do you want to see?

Filed under: Articles, Web Design by Dan