How a web design goes to hell
Submitted by Simon Lewis on May 13, 2010 – 8:05 am11 Comments
Creativity is a personal thing. You like your design, others aren’t so keen. You instruct a 3rd party. That’s good. But then…
Here’s what happens when you meddle with your model:
So what have we learned from this? Well, if you’re going to enlist a designer to help develop your website, let them develop your website. Your input should be at the start of the process. And it should be clear and concise. Meddling in the middle results in someone being shot (metaphorically, of course!)
Graphic courtesy of Matthew Inman, owner of sattirical design website, The Oatmeal. Add fibre to your diet. It’s a cracking read.
For UK work like this, use Carol Mann, managing director of website planning, production and promotion company, Smart WP. To learn how her business can save you from having kittens, give Carol a call on 020 8361 6690 or drop her a line at carol@smartwp.co.uk
Edited by Simon Lewis | Only Marketing Jobs
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Nice post, This has been circulating around our Banana office too! You should link to Matthew Inman at Oatmeal who produces these fantastic cartoons, the website he has developed and created is excellent and very amusing: http://theoatmeal.com/
SarahATTB
Brilliant but the pics are too good, it needs the client
to have supplied their own pref using an old dslr or better
still, a shot taken using their phone.
I love those comics, buy a very talented guy called Matthew Inman.
However I can see no credit on this page for his work, and it looks like Carol Mann is taking the credit.
How can we trust a company that uses other people’s work without credit?
Tony, you are entirely correct. Complete mistake this end, which has now been rectified.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Happy to help Simon.
When I was unemployed I spent much of an evening reading through his site, and even made a small donation because he cheered me up so much!
[...] Creativity is a personal thing. You like your design, others aren’t so keen. You instruct a 3rd party. That’s good. But then… click here to view the full article [...]
A very valid cautionary tale here. I have just hired a designer to revamp my website and will be VERY CAREFUL not to get fired.
[...] How a web design goes to hell | Only Marketing Jobs [...]
Great article and one that I can relate to this very week, have had the exact some thing happen. Build a site then the clients wants to use his own “software’ to build and manage it and can I send him hi-res TIFFs of the web files! Nightmare.
Anyway, the saga continues and have now given up on this lost cause…
The same thing happens with press releases. Clients appoint PR people because they are expert at communicating with journalists – right? So why do they then try to amend expertly written press releases with as many superlatives that can be crammed into the first sentence (‘unique’ will definitely be in there somewhere) and wrongly change the grammar and punctuation (eg 1960s becomes 1960′s). Then the expert PR person gets the blame because no one picked up on the client’s ‘amazing’ story. Best to prepare two versions, one for the press and one for the client’s file!
That’s a very good illustration of what can go wrong with a site redesign.
The most important thing to convey to a client when designing their web site is that the site is not actually for them, it’s for their audience. If they know their audience and they brief you properly, then you should be able to comminicate their brand succesfully and limit subjective changes that will comprimise the project.
A very clear brief and a solid process are vital to getting a site from idea to launch.