Why Bother with Design?
www.newmediapower.com
Recently, I attended a seminar by a prominent speaker turned internet marketing guru, who said, “You can have a pretty website, but if it does not bring returns then its a crappy website and all it has achieved is to earn an income for the web designer…”
Now I am a web designer too and I was really miffed – what in heck did this guy mean, running down my profession, my value and my business? But then I took a deep breath and realized that the reason why I was angry, was because this guy was right! A pretty website was useless to my clients if it did not achieve their business objectives – if it did not perform the way it was meant to.
Now having been in the web and multimedia development business for more years than I can remember, I recalled a lesson I had learned in one of my graphic design courses – there MUST be a reason (and a very good reason too) for creating a design in a particular way. A design is there to do a job – and if it looks pretty as well, hey, more power to you!
Surfing the internet can be a very painful experience for not just a designer, but for the millions who have to put up with eyeball-jarring visuals. The flashes, bumps and jolts, the crammed pages full of unreadable text and the use of every color in the world, all of which seem to cry out “Get away from here, NOW!!!” “Don’t read Meeee!!!”
The purpose of good design (whether pretty or not) is not just for creating attraction – its main strength is in making it easy for the viewer to gain and retain the information posted on your site. Information retained, is information acted upon – and action equals success.
Now I am a web designer too and I was really miffed – what in heck did this guy mean, running down my profession, my value and my business? But then I took a deep breath and realized that the reason why I was angry, was because this guy was right! A pretty website was useless to my clients if it did not achieve their business objectives – if it did not perform the way it was meant to.
Now having been in the web and multimedia development business for more years than I can remember, I recalled a lesson I had learned in one of my graphic design courses – there MUST be a reason (and a very good reason too) for creating a design in a particular way. A design is there to do a job – and if it looks pretty as well, hey, more power to you!
Surfing the internet can be a very painful experience for not just a designer, but for the millions who have to put up with eyeball-jarring visuals. The flashes, bumps and jolts, the crammed pages full of unreadable text and the use of every color in the world, all of which seem to cry out “Get away from here, NOW!!!” “Don’t read Meeee!!!”
The purpose of good design (whether pretty or not) is not just for creating attraction – its main strength is in making it easy for the viewer to gain and retain the information posted on your site. Information retained, is information acted upon – and action equals success.
to be continued...
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