Site Design: You Get What You Pay For

The U.S. election dilemma should serve as an excellent model regarding the importance of good design and usability principles. The person that designed the "butterfly-like ballot" is not even a designer, yet this person was allowed and actually given the go-ahead by the U.S. government to produce these 'historical mark makers' as the ballot standard for a State which has turned into the focal point of a nation.

You may be surprised to discover how much this exact scenario far too often parallels the business of Web site design.

With this in mind, I'd like to present two scenarios and then a question.

Scenario 1:

In the midst of this .com phenomenon, you realize that your company needs to "jump on the bandwagon" and get an effective Web site that will communicate what your company is about, increase your customer base and do business online, etc.

Scenario 2:

You have an existing site and need to find somebody to patch up your "hole in the Web" that maybe doesn't work all that well and looks even worse.

Question:

Do you go to Jack Code, the son of your neighbor down the street who built a Web site for your Aunt Marge's home business for $500? Or do you go to a legitimately established business or Web professional that specializes in Web site design and development and pay a lot more?

Everybody's a Web Designer

Nowadays, HTML Editors like Front Page, GoLive, or Dreamweaver (to name the more popular ones) can be purchased at a computer store for under a few hundred dollars. These programs have a minimal learning curve. Great. GoLive and Dreamweaver are great programs (notice I didn't say anything about FrontPage) that can help enhance and speed up the Web design process. But the problem here is that once somebody buys this software, it's easy for one to think that they are instant Web designers. This is the illusion that exists out there today and is one that businesses are suffering from when a "Jack Code" is hired for a "Web design" project. Sure, getting your business on the Web with a site is very important, but having a badly designed site with non- intuitive navigation representing your business will do more harm than good. First impressions are extremely important in building up your customer base and achieving repeat visits.

This article originally appeared in the November 30, 2000 edition of the WebReference Update Newsletter.