Group intelligence is multiplicative when idiots are involved - combining a half-wit with another half-wit does not result in a full-witted person, it results in a quarter-witted person (1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4). Combining a full-witted individual with a half-wit still only yields a half-wit. The more of these "wrong kinds of people" you have involved in the process, the worse things get.
I've created two graphs to help illustrate this trend.
- Those who have never designed anything visual (web, print, or otherwise)
- Those who think 1996 design trends are still hot.
- Managers, executives, etc who have no design experience but like to dicate creative direction simply because they can (or feel obligated to)
- Moderately savvy users who are highly opinionated and feel since they use the web they have an "edge" in the area of design. These clients usually take up the most time yet end up having the worst websites
So who are the right kinds of people?
- Anyone with an eye for great design, no matter what their job title is
- Usability experts who offer advice that has actual experience behind it
- Those who offer constructive criticism. My favorite example of the wrong kind of criticism is when someone says "it doesn't feel right."
- Those that understand that they hired YOU, the designer, to create something great. They may understand their business better, but ultimately they've left their trust with you to deliver a quality design.
But spending more time on it means it'll get better, right? Not necessarily. I was in Rand's office the other day showing him the new business cards I was working on for SEOmoz. I told him I wasn't too happy with them and had spent the past hour re-arranging bits of text and icons on a half dozen versions of the cards. He took one look at the cards and was blown away. From there a new term was born: DESIGNER-ITIS (pronounced like meningitis). "Designer-itis" is my made-up disease that designers suffer from when they've been staring at something for way, way too long. Let a few people mull over your design for a few hours and watch it spread like ebola.
Comment ruiner un design Web (read this post in French!)
I used to know an advertising executive who had a plaque on her desk that read "a camel is horse designed by committee"
graywolf - Reminds me of this comic from a few years ago.
Oatmeal
How many times would I have loved to have a link to that graphic?
No really... maybe we should just stop and think this through a little better?
lol havent seen that in ages... very cool! check out the dilbert cartoon on tv-links.co.uk the first one is brilliant... 'we need a new project... first step - give it a name" lol
It is my first time seeing this comic :) Thanks for sharing.
where would you have proposed putting the extra water?
I'm a little late to the party here but I have to disagree with the general sentiment here. To be honest, this post smacks of "holier than thou egotistical designer"-ism. Feedback is so important. You need to be able to see your design through someone else's eyes, and measure it against desired outcomes.The one key person missing from the list of people to get feedback from is actual users of the site. Is the offer attractive to them? Do they want to make the next step? Is there anything preventing them from enjoying the site? Plus the usual user testing questions. Disabled users can also be helpful in pointing out problems you might not have considered.
I do think that a lot of people have difficulty giving constructive criticism. A client might say that they want that text bigger when what they really want to say is that the offer should be more prominent. Or, as mentioned above, they say "it doesn't feel right" without being able to explain why. Having some user feedback to back-up your opinion could be helpful here.
I also think that a lot of desingers fall into the trap of believing that they have to please everyone. You can get feedback from tons of different people, that doesn't mean you have to do everything they say. But if it matches the stated outcomes for the site then maybe it's worth considering.
However, I do agree with the sentiment that people often don't respect the expertise if a designer and always think they know better. Hi, I'm the professional, I know what I'm doing here! (but I'm not perfect, and I need feedback to do my job better)
While I think it's possible to ruin a design by committee, I also agree with Megan here and think that it's possible to ruin a design by egotism.
Also, if intelligence is multiplicative, what happens when several people of full capacity work together? Does the resulting team still only have intelligence 1? I think not.
I'd actually say that even when very smart people collaborate on design, it becomes a compromise. The artistic integrity and true "quality" is highest when ONE - just ONE - talented designer does the whole thing.
Things like usability and content and user experience and information scent CAN be improved with input, but DESIGN - the quality of the look and feel - can only be reduced. There are a few, incredibly rare exceptions, but IMO - this is how it stands.
I think the difference in prespectives here is coming from a different definition of design. You believe that design = making it look good, I believe that design = making it work for people.Usability and content and user experience are all part of good design, and you need feedback to do that well.
If the only criteria for a successful design is that it looks good, then the theory stands. But to me that wouldn't be a very good design :) Art, sure, design, not so much. Art by committee doesn't make much sense, does it. Design by committee? Maybe :) Depends on the committee...
Perfect - you've hit the nail on the head, Megan!
What Matt is talking about in this post (I believe) is not the functional design (or wireframe) of the information to be presented, but rather the artistic elements that give it a look and feel. It's this - the artistic piece of the design - that everyone feels they're an expert on, yet we all know that art by committee produces compromise, not greatness.
While not mentioned as much in the comments, Rand did include usability and accessibility testing in his post and offers it as part of his company's services.
Hey, it was my post. Rand's too busy blogging about all that crazy seo nonsense :)
And yes, I agree completely. Users are very important, techcrunch actually polled their users when they re-designed their site. 76% of their users ended up hating the new design (unfortunately techcrunch went with it anyway, but it was still a good idea)
Dang it. Don't you just hate it when the Big Kahuna gets all the praise for your hard work? Sorry about that!
Um... where exactly? He mentioned "usability experts" but not actual users unless I'm spacing on something.
(And I was supposed to research the poster's history and company services before commenting?? Sorry, can't be bothered :))
I didn't explicitly mention users, you are correct. I do agree with you, however
My intention was not to offend, Megan. Rather, the point was that SEOMoz does what many companies don't bother with - user requirements, usability and accessibility testing, and a usability consultant will recommend user testing and keep trying to point the ship towards the end users needs, etc. Sadly, usability audits by companies sometimes come AFTER a site release. Boggles the mind why anyone asks for opinions from people who will never use it - and then ask those that do use it, for feedback after those that don't, built it. :)
ADDED: I just figured out what I did wrong. I was thinking of Rand's OTHER post, about how SEOMoz does business (and how they include usability stuff), when I replied.
It's okay. You can slap me. I deserve it :(
We've all heard the committee jokes, they're often true but there's a corollary worth noting. Unless you're satisfied designing in a vacuum, the outcome is just as important as the output, and here's where your argument starts to sound a little like the common fallacy of the psedo-intellectual. Collaboration and consensus mean we're much more likely to see, and thus care about things that fall well out onto your "curve" in the light of day, and the fire of the public imagination. Never forget the role the observer plays in your art.
Datagog - Thanks for saying what I feel. kudos.
Almost a year later and I still think back to these graphs when too many 'bosses' get involved with a design...
Thanks
And yet...and yet...Web design is an art, right? Art is subjective and intuitive, right? Sometimes there's just nothing else to say.
I'm a Web developer and designer. However, my primary training is in musical composition, and "but it doesn't feel right" or "but it doesn't sound right" is responsible for probably 98% of my self-criticism. If pressed, I could probably come up with a rationale in music theory for why it isn't right, but then someone else could probably come up with a similar rationale for why it is right. Sometimes all we can do to learn our craft is develop a good sense of intuition: principles will only take us so far. This applies in any art, methinks. That's why good designers -- or indeed any type of creative artist -- are such a rare breed.
The first graph I've known for some time. The second I've been suspecting for a while (I was hoping those were just isolated incidences), though it goes against all my experience in other areas of collaborating. (My first inklings that "team-power" wasn't helping happened when a mockup was sent back to me by a client who had "improved" it... all the way back to '96 style! Hmm, display this in my portfolio, or scream like a little girl and pray they never contact me again?)
I think I might just start sending this page to all new clients who sign up. lol
I sent this page to the business owner of the web app I am designing, and he said your graphs aren't colorful enough.
-M
Matt, this is by far, my favorite post of yours. As a designer, I can definitely relate!
LOL. I can't tell you how many tiems I've thought this.
This is so true! :)
Too much group-think can result in unwanted compromise and predictable results of "teamwork".
Also see this one.
(Just a fan, not affiliated with them in any way.)
hahaha, that last one cracked me up.
This site must have had 100 people trying to critique this site, or by one person who thinks they are a designer but isnt!
Can you count how many colors there are? horrid blue, grey, beige, dark gray, light pink?, white, lighter grey, brown?/maroon and black.
There are five gradients! And stripes. There is a mirror effect + gradient + stripes in the header! The color scheme is like something out of a bad movie.
Im really sorry for the criticism, but this site reeks of try-hard. Monkey see monkey do.
Try reducing the number of visual effects, colors and getting a nice color scheme. Fancy != good.
Ben!
Oh, never forget: de coloribus et gustibus non disputandum est ;-). It's not because you don't like the design that it's necessarily a bad design. I personally do like it! Navigation is simple, there isn't too much distraction,...
Something must have hit home there - hasn't it? The point of the article is valid ... so what's with all the bile? This site is clean and easy to navigate and the colors are not jarring. And NO- you are not sorry for criticism, since it's not a constructive one. If you ACTUALLY wanted to make it better - you would suggest an improvement. What you are doing here instead is some minor impotent ranting of someone whose ego got stepped on a little bit. Didn't have enough meetings today, have we?
You have it easy. You're a designer. Everyone does not consider themselves a designer. But everyone who has a keyboard considers themselves a writer. Which means they not only can have an opinion, but can also make changes. Or rewrite paragraphs. Or pages. Which makes real writers wince at the thought. Or worse. What would you do if you were a professional writer--a good one--and had that happen? I want the truth. -Ricardo
Rather than making denegrading comments about "the wrong people" ruining web design it would have perhaps been more relevant to have this gentleman explain exactly what elements of design ruin a web page. Disappointing self indulgent article.
This topic should be part of all web design training. I'm sure it's not the norm, but at the last big corporation I worked for (in-house), the higher the level of employee, the less informed decisions they were able to make about web design or development.
Artists are rarely satisfied. I've always envied their abilities. But, I also know that the strict discipline I bring to the table, born from software testing, brings forth a practical side that helps them stay the course, and even hold fast to their designs, if need be.
Many times the goals and requirements for a site design are completely forgotten when the artistic designer presents their ideas. Their layouts always seem to present new possibilities which open doors to "Let's try this!". Before long, after so many changes and trying to please stakeholders, the very reasons behind wanting site improvements has long been forgotten - because it just took 4 hours to decide what color blue is best.
Don't be so sure. :-/
This information is very helpfull to everybody those are involved in web design or development.Thanks to you for sharing this type of valuable information.
It's pity that original post is on French!...
A link to this article will forever now be on my initial design information request to my clients. There's nothing worse than a bunch of power tripping business executives throwing around their preschool design opinions.
The worst part is that 6 revisions later they tell you they liked the initial design best. All hail this article.
Damn! that's totally true, and almos scary! and I think is my duty to say that moving away won't help I'm graphic designer min mexico and it's totally the same more the client want to share they "view" the ugly it gets and yea that "it doesnt feel ok" id awdull the mexican version would be somenthing like "le falta algo" Argg the only thing I hate about being designer is that kind of clients lol.
eheeh e... nice article, if you are "presenting" 3 proposals and you dont really like one of them your client will pick this one you dont like and also will add some critics to finish f*** it at all :D
Brilliant! Funny yet frighteningly true. And I've gotta show this to my clients ;)
LOL i see this EVERY DAY! its all too true. Design by commitee is a biatch and ive had designs turned down before because 'i dont like green' so i re-submitted it in Blue and got a 'wow thats amazing' ... go figure.
i recently designed a website for an it company and have the MD, technical director and sales manager all sitting over my shoulder (i hate that) picking through the design... which in the end had a high red 'clown nose' in the centre of the home page with 'click here for it support' slapped across it... OMG
same applies to title sequences and motion graphics,thats why the term and practice of adding 'fire-hydrants' to projects was created. ( fire-hydrant = 'deliberate bad mistake (to be removed later)'for the dog-halfwits to 'spot and pick up on instantly' and to piss on, in an attempt to distract them from the good stuff.it generally works 99% of the time.
This is so true! I often notice that the more input my client has the less pleasing the design is!
great design
Since I am a web designer myself, I can totally understand where matt is coming from. During my 5 years experience, I was thankful that only one client actually dragged the design process into overdrive! Sometimes it is our duty as designers to explain to clients how design works on the Internet and show past examples of how successful the designs have been. If they are still not satisfied, there is only so much we can do within our control. And of course there can only be one Don Draper who does his magic with one show stopping sales pitch.
Hi there,
My husband's a known Ebola expert at the National Institutes of Health,so it's a household word around here.
I laughed when I read your last comment about "spreading like ebola" (though I adored your idea and your chart!!), so I sent him your post.
Here's his reply (he knows zip about web design, but does know his Ebola!):
"That's the biggest misconception about Ebola, glad you picked up on it! Because the virus has no history of co-evolution with humans, there has been no opportunity for natural selection to favor the development of efficient transmission mechanisms or the appearance of less virulent variant viruses that might be sustained more readily among human populations. Ebola infection is therefore quite nasty, but not at all contagious."
Cheerios,
Merry
I can easily guess from where "DESIGNER-ITIS" came from, that also reveals your hobby/interest >;D
Just remember, don't take it too seriously ;) It might be a lifestyle, but not life in itself ;)
Disclaimer: Don't understand what i'm talking about? Then perhaps you shouldn't even.
I totally agree with you!!!
Oh God, I've just been through this working on a site for our own company. The biggest mistake I made was telling the boss 'our site now uses CSS, any design related changes you need to make can be done really fast'.
Should have ordered my bulk supply of prozac on the spot because my boss thinks it's really great that he can now make as many 90's style design changes to the site as he likes.
I'm sure there must be some sort of disclaimer you can write up to stop management getting involved in any design related issues and that if they do the designer isn't responsible for the site going into a nosedive.
By the way diod u mind if I link u from my blog with a spanish resume (for those who don't understand spanish?).
All this sounds so familiar. Sometimes it would just be easier to let the web designer do his/her thing and then add their 2 cents.
Great post, thanks
I just recently discovered your Blog and appreciate you sharing your bout with Web Design with the world. but this site also search best knowledge Web Design: https://www.studioxcess.com"
ahaha I've found a new word for today DESIGNER-ITIS, Your article is funnier yet make sense, Its so true that you need to consider a lot of things on doing
Thanks for the detailed information to me it is very helpful.
nice post..
this is a very nice post
Your post is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you....keep up the good work!!!!
Nice one i agree with your graph. Design should not altered my many but suggestion should be taken. https://ansblog.com/free-wordpress-themes/
For me it is crowding a site with too much information.
Very interesting post and graphs, somewhat humerous...
The article is great and the blog is very knowledge sharing, Everyone does not consider themselves a designer. But everyone who has a keyboard considers themselves a writer. Which means they not only can have an opinion, but can also make changes. Or rewrite paragraphs. Or pages. Which makes real writers wince at the thought,
you can get more infromation from this.
https://www.cyberdesignz.com/
Here we have designed plethora of websites & having a huge customized web designed portfolio. But right now we are lagging behind from client list.
Why & how my competitors are fetching my clients.
I am having this problem at my current job. I love my comopany and my job but everything you said in this is happening to me. And then they blame me and it's ridiculous. I feel really helpless. I am a very good designer. But they'll never know it until they leave it alone.
Designer-itis - so true.. When I am done working on the PSD template of the project, I say to myself - "what an awesome design dude, what a genious you are". And by the time I am done with the HTML looking at the same template all day n night - "mmm..good work, but some thing seems missing, that could have been better".. The same syndrome...
And the very reason I dont solicite comments of too many people, and even designers. They have all together different perspective that belongs to them. All that matters is I am happy and so is my client. And even to my client, is evry hard though, I try to justify why its good for him. n you can guess who wins most of the time - yeah..the client ! :)
I know exactly what the writer means by this, it has happened to me a few times, especially at the start of my company when various individuals with different jobs were commenting on something they had no experience with.
It's not only applies to web design, it's applies to design in general.
nice post, Thanks for that
I regard this post as one of the classics in design blogging, and i don't think i'm alone on this.
This post has single handedly saved me from at least 3 arduous committee revision processes. Its salient wit cutting through the beuracracy - check mating even the most insistent comic sans requests.
I hope this blog has a good database backup regime. I'd like to show this one to the grandkids someday...
Vey Nice Posting
GREAT article! ; )
I'm not going to pretend that I'm a web designer but rather a "you pick from a template and I'll change colors and customize it for you" designer. I do, however, get the best of both worlds - clients know what they're getting, I don't have to spin wheels creating something they are going to want to edit to death, and I get to charge every time they DO want to change something. It just got too depressing every time someone told me my kid (web page) was ugly.
I did have an IT job once and saw first-hand how having too many chefs in the kitchen can ruin practically ANYTHING!
I found your post from yahoo and read a few of your other posts.They are awesome. Please keep it up!!
currently the 'in-thing' right now in terms of web design is the 'minimalist' approach. Over the top web pages with needless scripts and jpegs, that should be avoided. Thats' why most popular blogs have simple and 'clean' designs. a group contribution to the 'idea bank' of a web design should never be bad. the web designer must incorporate all the ideas put forth that is in line with the clients wishes by coding the web design to be as efficient as possible. in the end the client wants, the client gets.
"Those who think 1996 design trends are still hot." Unfortunately none of these people realize they're stuck in a previous decade.
You should also add to this list people who treat web design like print design.
I couldn't agree with you more Beth. As a web designer who also does print (usually it's the other way around) I have a strong understanding of both worlds.
In general though, I find that print designers (especially those who were trained before the Internet boom) have no clue when it comes to designing for the web.
I love when I get an InDesign file thats only 600px wide with a 10 point non-standard font. Explaining why it won't work is even more fun.
Experienced Web programmers who have to implement the designs of such print-design-mentality Web designers are frustrated beasts, as well.
Although this kind of thinking is attractive, it really indicates that you can't work as part of a team. If you feel that including other peoples' ideas dilutes your visionary wonderfulness then you might produce something worthy of "css galleries", but probably not useful to clients or users.
Right, good design is never good for clients. Only things that are loud, garrish and clown-like.
Good thinking, see you at the next board meeting!
Incorrect.
The premise stated in the OP is that including wrongly-skilled folks in the design process degrades the design.
Nobody would argue that having non-plumbers fix your pipes is a good idea, or that having non-surgeons in on your appendectomy is a smart thing to do. So why is it advisable to include a bunch of non-designers in your design work?
It's true... function (of advertising) is overtaking form on the internet. At least there are still sites like this.
Ah. You forgot to include the designer who thinks he's a designer because he knows how to use photoshop, fireworks, and/or illustrator, but has paid little mind to color theory, typography, or the nuances of the media for which he/she is designing. Which of course accounts for about 80% of designers.
Truth be told most designs start out crappy to begin with, so you need to complete the graph as a half circle and end it with end users head imploding.
Of course - the Microsoft Word Designers are so much better ... those graphs man .... they can really make you cry! Those who haven't slept with a font designer sholdn't be even allowed to look at press machines! Damn them and such!
Your X-axis only goes back to 1. This is misleading.
I have seen websites designed by halflings, and it was almost a religous experience. You should gather more data and include them on your graphis.
This is seriously my freaking life... I work for a template web design firm... We do custom work too, but all the work we do for the client seems to filter through so many levels of non-design professional 'Sales' associates that it never really seems like we are designing for the client... I feel like I spend every day designing for a bunch of idiots, all of my designs are run up one wall and down the other by people who don't know a single HTML tag.
It's a wonderful life....
My biggest problem has been convincing people that white-space is a Good Thing (tm). You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard, "But you're WASTING so much SPACE!"
It's the friggin' Internet. Space is FREE. :)
and isn't that the way it always is....
You have no idea how much I agree with this. My firms record is 175 rounds on a videogame cover - which ended up being a version from the first round. Oi-vey!
We think that James Surowiecki is a top bloke. We also enjoy sharing the same body... As our grandma always said, "Two heads are better than one, even if they're lettuce."
At my last job, I almost created some tshirts that had written in nice bold type "Art Director #__". Was going to hand it out to all the half-wits in the marketing department accompanied with a fat sharpie marker.
Everyone is a critic.
Best of all... try doing design for a board of directors in a non-profit....horrible experience.
Your post and graphs are so funny! I feel like you're writing about my life. I'm going through this exact angst with one of my clients. I've even used the word "abomination" to describe the morphed design as dictated by the client and his cheerleaders (I fought back and now it's my design again). Thanks for my laugh of the day.
Risa
We on the other hand are having a problem with a designer who took a fairly simple, clean concept and turned it into something that was lurid and would have little appeal to anyone who was not directly related to the designer.
Her only response when we suggested that it was really rather bad was that her mother and aunt liked the design and left us with the impression that they were the ones who would know good design and not us.
LOL - funniest response yet.
First Clue: Anyone's who asked their Mom and Aunt's opinion on their design is probably not worth whatever you're paying.
Second Clue: Anyone who actually admitted to asking their Mom and Aunt's opinion on their design and actually tried to use it in their defense should be drug out back and beat.
Sorry, I'm chiming in so late, but I just got here.
RevvedWeb, you are wrong. YOUR's is the funniest response yet.
I'm still chuckling.
Thanks!!
Let me guess... You have gotten somebody from the 2rd year of art school because she was a cousin/girlfriend/daughter of your owner/manager/CEO and because she would work for a fraction of what professional designer normally charge... ?
This sounds about right.
Whether the above is true or not, ultimately, it's the company's fault for hiring someone who couldn't meet their needs. Didn't they look at the designer's portfolio? Did they see samples of her previous work? I'm guessing no if they got a design that that came as a complete suprise to them.
Hillarious, and so true! There are a few people I so would show this too if they didn't bring in a lot of repeat business ;)
I hear lots of people talk about this stuff... but the 100,000 people per month the visit your site should have an enormous say in the design. You can tap your logs for that info. And the opinion is usually a numerical average that is easy to understand - it's almost like a vote.
If we design for our eye and use that as a starting point for the analytics - then you get the real design.... the one that performs best for your visitors and bottom line.
if the number of people that visits this site remains 100,000 per month, then theres probably a problem, perhaps with the design. a good design if everything remains the same should attract ever increasing number of visitors. you can't really put down a number (of visitors) to the web site and then correlate it to the badness / goodness of the web design. just my opinion.
I agree 100%... if you have really improved the design some metrics should improve such as time on site, pages viewed and perhaps growing traffic over time. All of this however depends upon content - its quality, placement and other aspects.
How many people measure this? I bet most don't - even savvy folks who read this blog.
I think that we must always be open minded to how the traffic on our site engage it. This can be measured and then alternative design elements can be introduced to see if it changes the traffic flow or engagement with the website.
The point that I am trying to make is that the designer never knows if those "nit wits" are right unless their ideas are presented to the traffic on the site. The bottom line in all of this is not what the designer thinks and not what those nit wits think, but instead it is how the traffic engages the design.
EGOL,
I can tell you are a "follow the process" kind of guy. Following a process is good but without the creativity in design, your apps will never be over the top. Most customers want certain functionlity. The wow factor rarely, if ever, comes from the customer.
The Y-axis labels on the graphs are hilarious.
And you're absolutely right that idiocy is multiplicative.
Absolutely true!
I agree, but the exact opposite is also true, I once had a client, who wanted a site, but had NO idea what he wanted on it. How he wanted to use it. Or what kind of information should/and or would be on it.
This also applies to other aspects of the "arts" My girlfriend is a painter, and she has a real tendency to overwork her painting's, it will be wonderfull, then end up a dark mess. If you know exactly what you're going to do, what's the good in doing it?
- Pablo Picasso
Design by committee? Nah, never happens ;)
So true and nicely written, I hope that you realise how many offices those graphs are going up in now :)
As I'm looking more closely at those graphs, I'm realizing that Matt's suggesting that the addition of even 1 more person drags down design quality... And, with Matt, that one other person is pretty much always me... You meanie!
Seriously, though - the last part of the post is as true as the first. Sometimes Matt won't be able to see what a great job he's done because he's too far into it - trying to refine and perfect. At that point, it sure is handy (and ego-boosting), to have someone come along and say "My God... It's gorgeous."
haha, well you're probably the exception to the rule. We're talking about half-wits here
Great timing on this post Matt. I've been in this exact fight for over a month and was thinking about it as I saw your post in my RSS feed.
Ultimately it is a question of managing your clients. I've learned to do this very well on search marketing and all other projects except design. For some reason execs never feel as comfortable letting others steer design and most suggestions are truly one step backwards.
Great graphs by the way:)
I have written a couple of stories under the title of "Webdesign Horror Stories" on my homepage, and there a quite a few of the stories in the comments that make you laugh or run away scared.
See stories below:
Webdesign Horror Stories 1
and
Webdesign Horror Stories 2
Matt is spot on with this.
Some are confused however, take the above post for Example. You see Tom, you complain about him preaching to the choir, but of course the only people that are going to really understand this are great designers. Your grasp of the subject is way off base, and that is because you have not experienced this.
*rant* He is not talking about a designer rapping out a random design he thinks is pretty and expecting the customer to love it, then getting mad when they don't... He is talking about a skilled design professional who has gathered lots of information from the client and went over with the rest of the team what needs to happen with usability and has a firm grasp of the sites purpose, molding a finely tuned design, that is super professional, meets all needs and requirements and should be an out the park home run, only to have other people on his team and the customer pick it to death with changes that eventually morph it into something they can all agree on, but sucks. *end rant*
Now, if the design is going to work it has to look great and fit in with the sites purpose, be useable and be built with the latest design principles. At this day and age, that means css, divs, limited images, and simplicity, all wrapped into a beautiful semantic work of art.
1. The company/org will stand out as professional and having a knowledge and grasp of technology and this century.
2. The end user will easily navigate the site and enjoy the visit. The site will function faster and better.
3. The customer will yield the benefits of a site that grows and expands with ease, and doesn't take a team of rocket scientists to make a simple change.
- And the catch is.. Customers that understand this, meeting designers that can truly provide it... are few and far between.
How do you know you have one of those designers? How do you be that client? - Sounds like somebody needs to write another article ;-)
Holy crap, you're like Matt's doppelganger.
THE INTERNET IS SITTING ON A SUPER SHINY TABLE
"Clients" would ALWAYS be the "Wrong people".
I loved, loved, loved the article, it's funny because this same exact subject has been heavy on my mind all this month.
Also I was really intrested in seeing your business card (I collect business cards)
They're heading off to the printers today, actually :)
I'll post about it when everything is done
This was entertaining at first, but then I started thinking about how it basically describes every workday of my life over the past 10 years. Now I'm a little depressed.
It's a little like watching "The Office:"
"Ha ha ha... sigh."
Excellent article. So true!
Truer words never have been spoken. I'm in the unfortuante position to have to design pages through an intermediary. (He get's gigs - I'm 2,000 miles away). Beautiful initial designs and mockups as a rule of thumb end up as pieces of junk. Sigh. Sort of like being asked to design a beautiful highrise - and you end up with a 3 story apartment building in shoebox design.
I'm a late-comer to this discussion but I couldn't pass it up. A couple things:
If your main goals as a web designer are simply "beauty" and "listings in CSS galleries", perhaps you're in it for the wrong reasons. The attributes on the y-axis of your graphs are pretty sorry.
Secondly, you list "wrong kinds of people" as "anyone who hasn't designed anything visual", yet list "right kinds of people" as people with an "eye for great design, no matter what their title is", i.e. potentially people who haven't designed anything visual. What's the difference?
Lastly, your original post is a 1996 trend. Heck, 1986, maybe 1906.... Yawn. Preach to the choir and the choir responds with how right and inspiring the post is, etc. etc. Designers are omnipotent and clients should keep their opinions to themselves, etc etc.
Let's move on from this and do our part to end this ridiculous adversarial relationship between designer and customer. It's beyond old.
this is so ever true!
Since I found this article, I always return to this page everytime I am frustrated with a customer like that. And that's quite often, sadly (as right now, for example).
But it's good to know that I am not alone :)
Edit: As for me, I would add a modified curve titled "How letting the customer take design-related decisions influences the quality of the design". Customers who like to "assist" with design choices can be a pain in the ass...
I'd like a printable version of this. Got one? Poster size would be ideal ;)
Us Too! 8'0" Tall please! Laminated ! - to withstand spit and bile that would be directed at that daily.
There is another phrase that comes to mind when dealing with these clients... "gawd, take my studio name off of that one - I don't need the links that bad".
Well said, glad I found you and will point a few people in the direction of this post. perfect.
perhaps there could be a 'tool' that 'detects' a customers 'preferance' for a certain website design. this 'tool' then immediately 'reconfigures' the web site that the customer may / will visit in the future so as to be attractive to the customer. the trick to this is that the customer involvement must be zilch. it has to be an automated process. i am not sure how all this is going to work frankly. sorry for my senseless ramblings.
You don't need to, use percentage for sizes.
I tend to agree that the more people involve in a project the worse the design of a web site is going to become. Particularly if the project involves some stuborn executives and managers or sort who have no knowledge of users internet behaviours and designing web sites.
What is a good web design, then? It should be Clean Simple and Optimized. It should be clean and simple because it makes content the focus of visitors attention and not how beautiful the design is. It should be optimzed for both search engine, layout space (flexibility for both 1024 and 800 screen users) and users ease of use for the content.
So it should be a design based on users usage of content (how users reading/using/working/clicking flow).
A blog format that cut both left and right side of 1024 screen to cater for 800 screen users is really a waste of space and requires users efford to scroll down.
- Chen Tong
A site should get better with time, since it will be holding more content.
The design of a website takes little part of the site's popularity. A design can only attract so many people for so long.
A design should be useable and readable, the content should be what's attracting your visitors, a great designed website won't get you returning visitors if it doesn't have the right content, but let's take all the major sites for example: Google, Yahoo, Amazon etc etc, all of these sites mostly are white background with white text.
For example, one thing I do not like about this website is the bright text on bright background, it makes reading much harder.
When you design a website, you need to think about the majority of the people, alot of people suffer from *some* eye disabilities. Some has color blindness, some just can't handle bright colors, some can't see small text etc etc, when you design you need to think about those people.
You might be a professional web designer but you design what your eyes like, when your website is serving not only you, actually the last person it should serve is you.
Alot of designers put accessibility away, when they really should know how to make great accessible designed layouts.
And always, asking the end users, the people you are actually serving, for criticism about your design is good, since if they don't like it then why even bother making it?
- Ben Barkay
Working for a web design project I had to listen to a group of 6 different people and obviously 6 different opinions. I presented a couple of designs, but I did not work. Some of them liked this design, some others that design. Regarding to this I did not know which style to follow. Even if my design would have been the “perfect design” there wouldn’t have been an agreement. I abandoned the project quite soon, because it was discouraging.
This is so true, so sad and true... had a case just like it last week :(
There might be one thing to do, when dealing with clients like this, but it has to be dealt with carefully. As already mentioned, most of these executive-types think they know better. Just have enough people tell them which design really is liked better. Simple users are normally quite intuitive, when it comes to good vs. bad design. (But don't force it on the decisionmaker.) It is not unlikely he will crumble before the general opinion. It happened more once, it can happen again :)
Wonderful article and great discussion!!!
So true Those that dives me nuts are "Moderately savvy users who are highly opinionated and feel since they use the web they have an "edge" in the area of design...take up the most time...worse website"
- I was strictly instructed to completely copy another website except just change the color scheme....and then after everything was DONE they told me they don't like they website 'cause of the bad contrast (THEY PICKED)
any advice on telling clients to stop ruining your own website? or dealing with opinionated ignorance?
But surely these users are exactly whom we're designing for in the first place. Good design is good not because the designer likes it, not because the client likes it, but becase the end-user likes it. It's sort of like the customer-is-always-right principle.
Advice: yeah: tell em to buzz off, OR charge every hour you spend on changing things on their behalf double :-p
Great stuff you wrote! I always suffer this "DESIGNER-ITIS" with government clients. They all emphasize about their "power" on what they wanted and how they thought it should designed in a way like saying you're hired just because we don't have the time to build it by ourself!
Power through sites how can that be expressed visually.. As power is felt and site is viewed..sounds they are want you to know they have power but they don't what's the use of reflecting their power on their sites..quite confused folks..
Thank you very much for this information and a great webpages you provide!