If I’ve found any sort of overarching strategy to successful website design, it’s this — do less. Good design is much like good editing — you must strive for absolute economy, leaving no element without a function and purpose. But doing less goes far beyond design. You should strive to remove excess from your entire process, and focus all the time energy and passion on delivering only the most useful elements in all your projects.

We hear this tack always mentioned in the realm of software development. Companies like 37signals have turned the advice into a traveling lecture circuit at their speaking events. However, I want to address what the idea holds for traditional, corporate website design and development. Brochure-ware, if you will.

For the last few months, I’ve been consciously talking my clients down from ambitious overhauls, expensive CMS solutions, and large scale site re-designs. I’ve found that less I do (put more professionally, the “less I scope”), the more time I have to focus on providing and refining only the most valuable and salient aspects of the website. Doing less leads to:

• Smaller budgets

  A tighter scope leads to a more modest budget. Smaller budgets are less risky, and easier to get approval and sign-off on. From my perspective, smaller projects allow me to book more work, thereby getting exposed to a wider range of projects. This, in turn, keeps me feeling creative and inspired — especially when I have the luxury of time to focus on details and create the most polished work possible.

• Shorter timelines

  Doing less condenses the timeframe into a schedule that moves much faster. A website that’s actually live, is infinitely more valuable than one that’s still in limbo, not quite ready to launch. From my own experience and that of others, it’s not uncommon for design projects to linger uncompleted for months, even years. Keep it simple and you stand a far better chance of shipping on schedule.

• Less development

  One thing I go out of my way to avoid is complex development. I advise against offering CMS solutions unless the client has a demonstrable need to manage their content. Just because CMS’s are flexible, scalable, and exciting pieces of software doesn’t mean that they’re appropriate for small, mostly static websites. For all development projects, the ‘hidden’ costs like client education, installation, content publication workflows, and security can often eclipse the cost of development itself.

As a small design freelance shop, I’ve found that my niche is being able to provide high quality, tightly scoped projects that address only the most important and useful design features. Yet I don’t think that this is a function of my situation — it’s a strategy that can work for both small and large agencies, and on all personal projects. Do less, do it well, and find out how much it helps your work.