After the first few months of freelancing, I’m starting to finally discover my design and business aesthetics — I want the web to be more like print. I want more constraints and far less technology. More than anything, I want to make things simple.
A great experiment for successful design is to pretend the Internet doesn’t exist — how would be communicate your product, service, or information in a 2 page print brochure? If we’re stuck on an elevator, what’s your pitch? Know exactly what you want to do and do just that, nothing more.
How did it get so bad?
We all seem to have got off track with the constant repetition of the “large site with deep navigation site” archetype. It’s a crutch solution — the focus is solely on organization and design, not the whole and the end result.
Just as everyone in development is enamored with scaling, it seems that far too many designers ask the question, “how much content can we dump in here, and still have things make sense?” rather than “how can we nix this nonsense, and just say what we mean?”. In many projects, it’s taken a priori that all the content that exists going into a project must remain intact. Of course, this leads to the new site simply shuffling a rotten core, putting a new face on old problems. Really, what’s diluting the web are piles of meaningless words, not a lack of style.
Of course, what holds most projects back from revising content is that it’s difficult, time-consuming work. It takes coordination, lots of buy-in, and tons of time to really re-think how to present your business or organization in a succinct fashion. Usually, it’s a much more time-intensive project than a re-design. Design is comparatively cheap and headache free, compared to re-wording and re-thinking your marketing pitch (I know, I’ve been re-writing my site for months). Yet the hardest problems are often the most important to solve.
Distorted incentives
We’re still saddled with the notion that the larger the company/budget the “larger” the site goals must be, a linear relationship wherein you add more money and you get more stuff (technology, more copy, etc). Further complicating things is that in many ways, the design firm’s best interest is to scope more work, because contracts are still largely based (or at least estimated) on hourly rates. The more “stuff,” the larger the end payout.
Until we can forcefully show that leaner, smaller scoped projects are more a valuable as larger ones, the trend of most site redesigns packing in “more than they need” will likely continue.
A way out
For a while I’ve been joking that the Internet would be a better place if every company tried to emulate apple.com. Well, now it’s not a joke. Seriously, go copy Apple.
Of course, don’t lift the design or steal the structure or patterns, but look to it for serious inspiration. It’s highly visual, but not too flashy, and the copy is just impeccably tight and convincing. One of the most successful selling laptops of all time is presented in six short, individually styled pages. Just like a great brochure.
Once you stop assuming (or allowing) that “everything must stay” in a given re-design, you can really start focusing on just how much can go. Focusing on editing, copywriting, and the end goals will result in a better web.
5 Comments
Permalink
It’s really interesting that I saw this post in my feed reader because it’s something that I’ve been thinking about lately as well. I do websites for friends once in a while as a side job kind of thing and I’ve been working on a site recently that I think can be done as a one-page site. I know for a fact that once I pitch this site to my “client”, he’ll freak and wonder where all the other pages are. But, the fact is that everything that he needs to get across to his audience can be done on one page — and done effectively.
My question to you is this: How do _you_ get buy-in on this idea from your clients? How do you explain that pages and sub-pages of information can be unnecessary? Have you had experience with clients that feel their site would be inadequate among larger and deeper-navigating sites in their market?
I agree it’s a great idea and I think the web would be all the better if we all just got to the point and left out all the fluff/cruft.
Permalink
You’re exactly right here. It’s so much more work to include copy (messaging/wording) in the process of designing (redesigning) a site, but the result is always so much more powerful. It’s also a much more realistic view of design - but most people tend to stick to their strengths (design, ui, copy) in an individual sense instead of approaching projects holistically. All of those things have to work together - well.
Permalink
I had a client who gave me a long hierarchical list of pages that *needed* to be on his site right at the start of the project. It was four levels deep, and after some mild prodding it turned out he had no idea what was supposed to go on those pages – none of the content had been written – he just knew that they needed to exist, and there was no budging him.
In the end what most of those pages contained was a description of what the other pages contained. “To see our services, click the services link. For contact information, click the contact information link.” etc. What a nightmare. I learned to be more forceful with clients after that experience.
Permalink
Great article Matt.
You seem to be talking mainly about web design in the context of web site design. I agree wholeheartedly that designing for the web the way you’d design a magazine spread in InDesign, for example, could improve everyone’s experience online dramatically. Of course, until its easy for people with limited knowledge of CSS to generate layouts as easily as they can in InDesign, that will remain difficult.
It’s important, though, I think to differentiate between different kinds of web design; in interface design for example its vital (as you know) to present each page identically (think property overview page) so that people can quickly scan and find the information they’re looking for.
So, while Apple’s individual product pages have different designs, the site structure within their product sites is usually similar (click here for performance information, here for tech specs, etc.), and in the Apple Store each product has an identical layout for cusomization, checkout, etc.
Obviously we all know this, but I think it would be helpful if we as a profession are more careful when we talk about “web design” - do we mean web site brochureware design? Web application design? Interface design? Information design? Flash design? Being explicit helps define the scope of our conversation, and makes it easier to communicate our meanings.
Or some shit.
Permalink
Great comments!
@Josh: It’s hard honestly. Usually, the best way to get clients to think more critically about the content on their site is to ask them to put themselves in the ‘average user’ persona.
I think it’s a tendency for some to imagine a user who’s really very interested in their site — and incredibly patient. The truth is, most people aren’t very interested, and move fairly quickly through sites, even if they are the ‘target user.’ Pushing clients to consider how they use the web, and how fast they move through most sites shows them the value in paring back and editing their content.
@Björn: That’s such a frustrating situation — ‘dead’ landing pages that exist solely to prop up a content hierarchy just dilute the site message into mush. I always push that every page have at least one “action” that relates to a business goal.
@Evan: I think you’re very right to point out all the benefits of consistency and obvious patterns. I wholeheartedly agree that sites need consistency to enable usability.
Taking the print metaphor further, I’d say that most successful print projects have strong common elements and follow an internal style guide. Websites should be like just like this — familiar yet flexible, thoughtful and well considered.
In the context of my piece, I’m definitely discussing brochure-ware type sites where you’re displaying company and product information as well as marketing / branding ideas. In this context, I just think sites would be much stronger if they let the content influence and lead the design.