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Great Content Needs Great Design

February 24th, 2007 | design, publishing

A long comment to Karin at Kiss2 turned into a full blown post. She asked:

Why, if it is called the World-Wide-web, do so many websites, blogs, forums etc make it so difficult for the world-wide-visitor to find out (simply and almost instantly) where the company/business/organisation is based?

Sometimes I think it is intentional. A few shady businesses (ok, more than a few) want to hide their identity to fool sloppy consumers. But mostly I think businesses hide their identities on accident.

Because they don’t understand the importance of design.

They rely on html engineers to build their web pages without ever thinking to consult a designer.

A lot of html engineers call themselves designers but don’t know much about clean and effective design. Based on my limited experience as content editor of two web sites, I’ve discovered that writing code and designing a page are different skill sets. Occassionally these skill sets come together in one person or one company. But not always.

Part of the problem seems to be that creating clean and effective design is just really really difficult.

Case in point, the two sites I edit have had some design problems. (One site is in beta right now with a redesign that will dramatically fix these problems.) Both sites have great content—TheHighCalling.org has over a thousand articles—but we just didn’t design the site in a way that help readers find it.

In short, we hired a brilliant html engineer, but we didn’t hire a designer. We built a house and expected the construction crew to create the architect’s blueprint.

I’m not trying to belittle our engineer. The man is a genius. Really. But he isn’t a designer.

How does this fit on a site about editing? Take a look at your blog’s design. Take a look at your website’s design. Great content is important, but without great design people may not be able to see your great content!

(And a special thanks to Liz Strauss for helping me find Karin. If you aren’t familiar with her blog—go now, go fast, stay long.)

Viewing 8 Comments

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    Well, now. You are speaking my language (yes, former designers never lose their sense of vision!)

    A message without a good visual medium is like a great singer without a microphone. We ain't hearin' anything from ya! (And reading lips is rather tiring.)
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    Glad to hear you say this! I'm immediately turned off by web pages (sites or blogs) with too much going on. We have the power at our fingertips to add all sort of lists and widgets and ads. And many people do so to the extreme.

    I've worked in marketing and advertising creating business materials and learned a few design principles along the way. But in some ways the internet seems like it's own entity in this regard (so I claim no great design where my own blog is concerned).

    Your post begs for a part 2 (and even 3). How about suggestions as to what makes for good design?

    LL-you practice what you preach - and excellently. I love the visuals (photos) that accompany your posts.
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    L.L., I didn't realize you spoke "design." I'm pretty much an amateur designer--though I did judge literary magazines for Columbia Scholastic Press Association one year.

    A Musing Mom, the biggest design stick of all comes from some of the social networking sites. (MySpace anyone?)

    And being a hack designer, I wouldn't know what to say in a longer series. Except this:
    Less is more.
    Form follows function.
    Don't widget for the sake of widgets.
    Don't try to eat the entire buffet of options.

    Hey, that was a fun little list!
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    I think a key design principle is to design with a particular audience in mind. We redesigned our corporate website 3 years ago and one of the things we wanted to achieve was a website friendly to prospective customers...we wanted to make it easy for them to find the information they need to make a buying decision.

    We even won an ADDY award for our website..more a credit to the website design firm than us but it was still nice.
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    Hi Marcus

    Thanks for the link and you've turned my 'wondering about' into a interesting post.

    As 'amateur' webdesigner I had a great 'mentor' in webdesign and content. This great guy (I called him the real web-wizard) always insisted on one thing with everything you do on your website: importance of functionality and consistency in the lay-out of every page, making sure your visitor knows to find his/her way around the site (and when you have a real shop also his/her away eventually to that real place). Learned a lot from him.
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    Andre! That's great! If the site is still active, I'd love to take a look at it.
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    Karin, you are more than welcome for the link. (And we should both thank Liz Strauss for connecting us . . . I'll add that link in minute. I forgot!) Your short question earned the link by engaging me as a reader.

    I'm totally jealous that you have a mentor. I want one! Though probably the more appropriate response is to see who I can be a mentor to.

    Helping reader's find their way around is so important. You can see that my page is still a work in progress in that regard.

    And you raise another question for blog design specifically. What is it we want our readers to do? Where are we driving them? For me, right now, my call to action is for comments.

    I'd be curious what other bloggers are hoping their readers will do...
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    I've got three blogs, al for different reasons, all with other 'call-for-actions'.
    Our FAQ blog on Wood You Like Natural Wooden Flooring (our business in Kent UK) informs our customers about all things related to wooden flooring and 'calls' for them to ask their specific questions (problems with/on/about flooring they encounter).
    My Kiss2 blog is about kepping business simple and 'calls' for conversations about these issues, sharing of experiences with other business people.
    My new blog (pondering) is personal, 'calls' for reading, smiling, recognising same experiences. Is brand new (created this week) and I'll wait and see what will happen to it.

    Have a good week next week,everyone; last week had been a topper! (for me ;-))

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