Successful websites are designed and built. A good web designer approaches a website build like an architect — designing the right functionality, structure and use of materials to get the best results. Only a painter/ decorator would focus on the colour scheme and finished look.
And what’s the fundamental building block, foundations and bulk of a website? Content.
Chocolate teapots and animal cruelty
No matter how beautiful a chocolate teapot might be, it’s still useless — in design you just can’t ignore the content.
An architect can’t ignore what material they have to work with and how to get the best from it — first you must ensure the design is fit-for-purpose and built on solid foundations. Ignore this and then, no matter how pretty the ‘design’, it won’t be effective and will fail.
What if none of your content fits? Are you supposed to ruin effective sales copy or change your message to fit the design? Isn’t that like sawing the legs off a racehorse because the stable ceiling is too low?
Putting the maimed horse before the cart
Beware web decorators that don’t ask for any content before starting a design. A Photoshop mock-up with ‘ipsum lorem’ filler text is hardly a design built to your specific needs to maximise the value of your content is it? Ask this kind of web designer exactly which shade of blue will boost your sales the most or if search engines prefer stripes or polka dots!
Good web designers need to know…
What pages are needed? How will they link? What will the navigation be? Where do you want the visitor to go? What needs focus? What message is being communicated? What’s the optimum site architecture for SEO, sales funnels and effective calls-to-action? How much space does each content block need? How does the content flow? How do the graphical elements support the message, brand, sales copy and tone of voice? Is the design unified or at odds with the content? Does everything come together to create the best user experience and sales environment? etc…
You need content to answer those questions and design an effective website. If you’re not being asked about your content or you’re a web designer who ignores it then you should change to someone who does.
7 comments/ references for Website designer/ architect or painter/ decorator?
ErisDS — 5 comments
All clients need to read this.
In too many cases, web designers have no option but to go with Lorem Ipsum as they are given nothing other than a few headings, a basic site structure, or worse nothing to work with.
In a perfect world all clients come with content at the ready, in this less-than-perfect world, we do what we have to do to get the job done because the customer is always right – they want to see a design next tuesday & the content is “On it’s way”…
Meshach
Great article.
Scott S
Another wise article John.
Have to agree with Eris though. As designers, we don’t always have the luxury of content when it comes to the initial design!
Keep up the good work old chap!
Wizely,
SEO Copywriter
Thanks Scott! It’s easy to see that web design clients are often their own worst enemy by not thinking “What do I want to say?” before worrying about how to present it.
I’m with Eris too – “All clients need to read this” and she’s spot-on with people in such a rush to see a design that the content’s always “On its way”. But effective websites (and most communications for that matter) get the best results through copy and design working in harmony – what you say and how you say it.
Content shouldn’t be a luxury it should be a necessity!
It’s not always possible to get complete content before working on the design, but when copywriter and designer work together? Well there’s no doubt that the client gets a website that will get better results.
And why don’t web design clients realise this? (Here’s where I think web designers on the whole can’t just blame their clients!) Because the vast majority of designers don’t talk about copy and so many focus on their craft (ooh it’s w3c-compliant XHTML!) that they don’t talk to their clients about how the website is actually going to make sales.
Let’s get together in harmony and make this imperfect world perfect – content isn’t a dirty word, start mentioning it!
Thanks guys
Duncan — 1 comment
The nail has been hit on the head in this article and in the comments here.
We are constantly chasing clients for copy, it seems that most do not know where to start and so put it off despite our efforts to get it at the beginning of a project.
We have now teamed up with a great copywriter to offer a copy writing service to run in parallel with the web design.
This should help those client who struggle to write anything at all and those who write pages and pages of copy that just doesn’t have the focus and concentration that a good copywriter can achieve.
Writing good copy is just as much a skill as designing a website and I think its often not given the credit and attention it deserves.
Rob Mason — 4 comments
“Putting the maimed horse before the cart” – classic.
Marlene Affeld
I am preparing to build a new site and will be hiring a website design company. Your article was very helpful – answered a lot of questions and cleared confusion. Thanks for the information.