10 things a web designer would never tell you
Posted in Design on: Thursday, February 5, 2009 by Paul Boag
These arty-farty web designers are always telling you how your site should look. Don’t listen to them! Don’t they know the customer is always right? Here are 10 things a ‘good web designer’ would never tell you about choosing the perfect design.
Please Note: This post is based on a tongue in cheek presentation – watch the video!
Working with web designers is a nightmare. You will never meet a more opinionated bunch of snobs. They are always going on about ‘white space’, ‘composition’ and how they went to art college (like that counts as a proper education!). When it comes to choosing the design of your site, they are the last people you should listen to.
What follows are 10 things you need to know about managing a web design project, that no web designer will ever tell you!
1. Always request speculative design up front
Before you pick which web designer to work with make sure they submit some designs for your site upfront. Whatever you do, don’t pay for this work. If they really want to work with you they will swallow the cost.
Some of them might start bleating about not doing ’speculative design’ and that only designers desperate for work would do design for free. Personally I ignore this BS. If they are ’so successful’ that they can’t spare the time to do unpaid work for me, then I don’t want to work with them.
What is great about speculative work is it is not constrained by ‘understanding the business’ or ‘user feedback’. Its all about creativity. Surely a good web designer can come up with great work out of thin air, even if they don’t know who the target audience is and have never spoken to the client. I want something that makes me go wow. Who cares if it ‘fulfils my business objectives.’ The more bells and whistles the better!
2. Don’t get hung up on end users
Web designers are always obsessing about the end users. They worry that users won’t like this or that they won’t understand that. Its pathetic.
People like to be told what to do and they will ultimately follow your lead. I once had a web designer complain because I wanted to collect users phone numbers on a sign up form for our newsletter. Apparently ‘users’ don’t like being asked for unnecessary personal information. Can you believe it! How the hell am I going to cold call these people if I don’t have their phone numbers. Sometimes you wonder how these idiots survive in business.
Instead of focus on user needs, focus on what you can squeeze out them. Times are tough these days and so you need to maximise your returns on every one of these sheep. You have to be tough in business.
3. Rely on your gut instinct, not testing
Talking of users – what is this obsession with user testing? Just sounds like a way for web designers to charge more money if you ask me.
After all you have probably been working in your job for years. You know all there is to know about your audience, right? Even if you did run user test sessions, stakeholder interviews or whatever other made up technique is the latest fashion, its not going to tell you stuff you do not already know.
Admittedly, these sessions occasionally turn up stuff you might not expect, but can you really trust the results? Surely your years of experience count for more than a few hours of testing.
Of course, the other problem is that user testing is massively expensive. I heard from a friend that it involves usability labs, videos, two way mirrors and ‘facilitators’ (whatever those are). That all sounds pricey to me!
Some web designers will tell you that they do it by going into user’s homes and talking with them in their own environment. They justify this by saying you learn more because the user is relaxed and you can see where they live. Personally, it doesn’t sound very professional and if it isn’t expensive, how could it possibly give good results?
4. Form a committee to provide feedback
Admittedly I maybe sounding a little arrogant, but I really am not. I think it is important to get the opinions of other people. I just think web designers are not the people you should be asking. They live in a techy bubble and do not understand what it is like to be an ordinary user like us.
I suggest forming a committee to approve any designs produced. After all web designers keep telling us that design is subjective. That means you shouldn’t rely on the opinion of just one person (especially if that person is a designer). What you need is a committee to thrash out what the site should look like.
Ideally you would call a meeting with the designer in the room and get them to produce something there and then under the direction of the committee. However, most designers tend to get ‘emotional’ when you suggest that. So instead I recommend giving them the freedom to produce something themselves and then discuss it as a group.
Now inevitably this will lead to disagreement. Some people will like the colour, others will hate it. This is natural. What you need to do is seek a compromise that will please everybody. If you can have the designer on hand to try out new ideas in the meeting this will really help. Before you know it you will have a design everybody can tolerate (although admittedly not everybody will like it).
5. Become obsessed with detail
“The devil is the detail they say. Nowhere is that more true than on a website. Unfortunately you cannot rely on a web designer to have that attention to detail. Its hardly their fault. They are ‘arty’ people after all and their brains just don’t work that way.
If you want your design to be ‘just so’ you will need to micro manage every aspect of the design process. Don’t be afraid to tell your designer exactly what you need them to do. Be as specific as possible. After all, they call themselves pixel pushers.
Also insist on consistency across all browsers. Web designers tend to be sloppy in this area. It might look great in Safari (apparently this is a browser – who knew!) but in Netscape 4 it looks awful. They will give you some rubbish about not all browsers being capable of rendering modern design. They will say that as long as it is usable on all browsers, that is what matters. The hell it is! You don’t put up with that kind of rubbish in print design, so why should you on the web?
6. Enforce corporate style guides to the letter
Your organisation has a corporate design guide for a reason and yet web designers think they can flaunt the rules. They will talk about the differences between print and the web. They will go on about colour on screen, web typography and dots per inch. However, the real reason they want to ignore your guidelines is because their egos will not allow them to work within limitations.
You must take a firm hand over this issue and stick to the letter of the law. Enforce pantone numbers and ensure they use corporate typefaces. They might mutter something about limited fonts on the web but this is just not true. I know for a fact that sites built in flash can use any font you want. With that in mind I always recommend that sites are built entirely with Adobe Flash.
Oh yes, and watch out for abuse of the logo. Most style guides say that the logo must have a certain number of millimetres around it to allow ample white space. I recommend taking a ruler and measuring the space around your monitor on screen. Better still, print out the design so you can be even more accurate.
7. Fit as much on the homepage as possible
Let’s take a moment to discuss the design of your homepage in particular.
Without a doubt the homepage is by far the most important page on your site. If I look at my own website statistics the majority of people who come to my site never get further than the homepage (I have no idea why this is the case!) This is a problem.
The solution is obvious when you also consider the importance of minimising the number of clicks a user has to make to reach content – Put as much content as possible on the homepage.
This also solves the problem of everybody within your organisation wanting homepage real estate. Instead of endlessly discussing whose content is most important, simply put it all on there.
Of course with so much content on the homepage people might complain their content is lost in the crowd. The best solution in such situations is to either make it bigger or animate it. I find flashing text particularly effective.
8. Ensure all content appears above the fold
Unfortunately you are limited in the amount of space available on the homepage. This is because all content has to sit above the fold.
The fold refers to the point where users have to start scrolling. As we know users do not scroll. In 1994 Jakob Nielsen found that only 10% of users would scroll when presented with a web page. 15 years on I see no reason why this would have changed.
Some designers will tell you that the fold is a myth. They will argue that it does not exist because different browsers, resolutions and toolbars all effect the vertical available space. All I know is that on my computer I have 470px of vertical space before I have to start scrolling. I am a fairly typical user and so you should ensure all content is within this area.
The only exception to this rule is if your boss has a different amount of vertical space. If he is going to be looking at the website I suggest designing for his browser. Alternatively simply print out the site for his approval.
9. You only need to test in Internet Explorer 6
Web designers like to claim they need to spend hours testing on every browser combination. However, in reality this is just another way to extract more money from you.
All you really need to do is build the site so it works on Internet Explorer 6.
Internet Explorer is the most dominant browser having by far the largest market share. Although there are different versions of IE most companies run IE6. As corporate customers are the people with the real money you should concentrate your testing on their browser. Also surely if it works in IE6 it will work in IE7! You can trust Microsoft not to break the web.
If you want to be super cautious, add a message to your site telling users it is optimised for internet explorer. Users can then download that browser if they want to see your site.
10. SEO is more important than design
Getting the design of your website right is important. However it is no use if nobody sees it. Your number one priority has to be driving traffic to your site.
The best way to do this is through search engines. Fortunately there are a plethora of tricks and techniques to fool Google into ranking you highly. You can use hidden text, cloaking pages, redirects, doorway pages and keyword stuffing to force you up the ranking. Google kindly list these techniques in their Web Master Guidelines.
The problem with some of these techniques is that they undermine the design and content of your site. They can also affect the usability and accessibility. However, this is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep those new users rolling in.
Some web designers place a higher emphasis on repeat traffic. However, in my experience it is hard to get a user to return a second time. This is almost certainly because they have seen everything already. Why would they come back? Concentrate your efforts on creating a steady stream of new users.
Conclusions
If I could leave you with a single thought from this post it would be this – your web designer does not work with you, he works for you.
You need to take control of the design process. Its your site and you should get the design you want. The role of the designer is to implement your idea. Do not allow him to drag you down into endless discussions about ‘users needs’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘usability’. These are all distractions from the primary aim – to impress your boss and earn that next promotion.
This article was based on a presentation I gave at Bathcamp and is a sick twist version of content taken from my book ‘The Website Owners Manual‘
172 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
Thanks for this Paul, I really enjoyed listening to you at BathCamp yesterday so it’s great to have it written down too(as I forgot my notebook).
Many Thanks – Pete
Have you been talking to my clients?
Really enjoyed your post – have circulated it around my office and can hear people chuckling to themselves from all corners. Thanks!
Hey guys, I would really appreciate it if you could do me a favour. Could you digg this post? – http://digg.com/design/10_Things_a_web_designer_would_NEVER_tell_you/
somehow, i disagree on the first point. i had a bad experience, while i gave the best design upfront (before having any deals) and the client ran away with my design and choose to work with a cheaper designer.
From now on, i never want to do upfront design before i get my hands on any payment. I’d rather do many revisions after down payment.
Just my 2 cents.
Ha! Was reading and got halfway down and thought this must be a joke!
Point 7 convinced it for me.
Genius! However you did miss the “always use comic sans” part off for them too! :)
A truly frightening rant – even more so for the fact that I have worked for people who genuinely think like this.
Very funny mind!
Brilliant. Having fallen foul of most of these points in past, I can recognise how accurate the point of view that you’ve written in is.
Kudos!
Hi Paul, great talk last night at #BathCamp. I’ll make sure I send this to all the people I know who think these *are* the golden rules!
@rama – think you may possibly have missed the sarcasm and irony of this post :-)
Nice one. I’ve got to admit you had me up until point 4. I was getting a little hot under the collar too :)
Damn right. I agree with every point. If a web designer can’t be bothered to sit in front of photoshop for half an hour so that the CEO can get an image in his head of what he’s paying for, then frankly, they ain’t gonna win the business.
Also on point 5, make sure you draw some ideas down of how you want the site to look, and fax it to the designer. They can’t be trusted to match your “vision” if left to their own devices.
Even better, make sure you jump ship to a different designer every year or so. Long term business relationships are for pinkos and hippies. Keeps them on their toes!
@rama – The whole article is a joke, you shouldn’t disagree on the first you should disagree on all of them.
Paul – You really need to put a smiley face or a note about doing the opposite, I would show this to some clients but they wouldn’t get it.
Great post, we have all been down these roads.
Can I just point out that ‘Matt Curry’ is one of my clients *sigh* ;)
Quick, someone call for help! Headscape’s office CLEARLY has been overrun with clients from all corners of the globe!
My personal favorite:
“You can trust Microsoft not to break the web.”
Still can’t stop laughing from that one!
Most amusing; the sad thing is that there are a lot of people out there who think that all of these things should be adhered to! Poor misguided fools; personally i steer clear of anyone with that sort of mentality for the sake of my sanity!
I think you may have forgotten one very important point here. We must warn our clients that the best way of giving us their logos and hi-res images is in Word format. I can’t work with anything other than that.
;)
speaking of which, we had an SEO company in yesterday that want to put a keyword-filled scrolling news ticker on the homepage. You can do that right? At the top so it gets noticed?
also, the boss says he wants one of those cool exploding logos, maybe as some kind of splash screen?
Ha ha, genius. So true. Now back to the tetchy bubble to get on with it.
Classic. Well written. Please don’t share this with my clients ;)
I can’t say I agree with every point but I do get the theme that as designers we’re there to do as the client asks.
I’m a designer that never did the arty-farty college stuff so when people go on about all these extra processes they go through to come up with a design I tend to switch off.
I wouldn’t do a full design speculatively but i’d give them some ideas and thought’s and maybe a quick rough design. With SEO yes it’s important but it’s about getting the full package, one is not exclusive without the other, it’s always best to get the whole package a good design that’s search engine friendly.
Not to sound to arty farty myself it’s all about the balance and doing whats right for the client, but also educating them with your views and experiences to help them make the most informed decision.
and no matter how big it is when presented, make sure they make your logo at least another 50% bigger.
Also, when using a CMS, ALLWAYS copy in your text straight from Word, with all your fancy fonts and colours attatched, and dont forget those tables (that text isn’t going to align itself!), then, ring your web developer and simply say “my site is broke, what did you do?”
He’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. If you want size 30 red times new roman as a “sub header”, then why not? They dont call it a CONTENT management system for nothing!
Seriously though, great article, glad I’m not the only one.
Oh man this is good.
“You can trust Microsoft not to break the web.” Probably the funniest line in the post.
Nice work of distinguishing through the real designers and the not-so-real ones. This comment area will continue to get better.
I might make this article required reading before accepting work from a client.
Phew, and breath… for a second I wondered where I was. The high horse was ordered and I was ready to get on it. Then the penny dropped (sorry for my slowness in nature)… Please make sure you retweet this on April 1st. Fantastic post. Can you also add that a good website designer will also complete ongoing amends to the site over a year for free, after all they put the site up and so should understand what’s in a clients head and the need for change.
Nice one.
The nav bar on Kean’s site looks suspiciously familiar.
http://simplebits.com
I feel like you’ve been wiretapping my phone calls…dam you “fold” and “ie6.” Oh well, back to FrontPage
Completely agree with all points. Wouldn’t run my business any other way. :D
On a more serious note. This is a genuinely frightening read. I have had a few clients who simply do not read to the bottom. I hope and pray that these people do not find this post!
Paul – ace post, and great talk at BathCamp last night. Thanks so much for agreeing to do it.
I’ll post the video just as soon as Vimeo stops clanking.
Laters
Mike
Outstanding.
I think you need to ensure @enterprisey sees this as soon as possible.
Love the post, gave me a good chuckle. #9 is my favorite–the twisted logic almost makes me want to cry.
I dunno, man. I personally think the leading thinker in this area is Strong Bad. I’ve used his web design principles, and I’ve never gone wrong.
You forgot to mention the importance of metatags as a ‘design feature’. Its essential to spend numerous committee hours in order to get the metatags right. Everything else is of secondary importance.
I once battled for 3 years with a senior lecturer in web design, who insisted that metatags were the most important part of the overall design. He still oversees a university undergrad course in web application design, which include a lot of work with tables, although I think they do mention CSS in one class.
But what do I know? Thanks for clearing up so many of the above points.
Just saw your comment on Twitter, had to come over to read this!
Haha! Great post!
Well, really nice post ;-)
What’s worrying me is that some of my clients… (wouldn’t want to say boss) think exactly that way.
@Yaili – you should consider yourself lucky… we’ve had clients tell us that they’ve “had the logo designed” and will “supply it to us”. Only to be later given a sheet of A4 paper, with some felt-pen scribbled idea. Still… I suppose this is design… kind of..
Nice article Paul.. some very relevant messages in there that I’m sure most of us relate to when dealing with clients…
shoot, i should have read it all the way to the bottom before posting any comment :p
Hi Paul,
Nice post. I did enjoy the BathCamp talk last night. My boss will enjoy this!
Dave
lol very good! After the first couple of points I was like WTF?!
Nice. Quite entertaining. I have to admit, I didn’t completely catch on to the sarcasm until number 3. Good fun, this brightened my afternoon. Thanks and regards.
Best advice EVER. haha
I needed a good laugh this morning.
I really enjoyed reading this and got a couple good laughs. But I just know it’s only a matter of time until a potential customer pulls out this blog post as reason to collect phone number on a sign up form or to skimp on test.
erk.. Other reasons why a full featured CMS is a bad thing.
“Why do the pictures take sooo long to load”
“Umm thats because you have a 1024*685 jpg in an image thats supposed to be 474×317″
http://simplebits.com/shop/
Fell victim to my habit to scan read, must learn to take it all in.
Well, I enjoyed reading although it seems like the author has sometimes no idea what he’s talking about… strange.
This article made me so depressed… because it all happens. The fold is the best, because they really do believe that the fold on their own monitor matters and no one can convince them otherwise… hahaha “Print it out” was awesome as well.
Fantastic stuff, got me wound up after reading the first one then the penny dropped. Cheers.
Fantastic stuff, got me wound up after reading the first one then the penny dropped. Cheers.
Wow, this sounds like so many of my clients!
After reading the first half of Point#1, admittedly a little confused by your opinions – I was about to jump down your throat! But by the first line of Point#2… I realised that you were clearly joking. (can’t always tell with you, Paul, to be honest lol)
In a sense it was quite good to have these ‘opinions’ thrown at me unsuspectingly, as that is exactly what happens with a client (sometimes) and although you can ‘prove’ to them that they are wrong… you won’t convince them until they go into administration a few months later ;)
Freaking hilarious! Of course, at first I was steaming mad because I didn’t get that it was supposed to be *ironic*. Thanks for setting me straight in my gullible ways, folks.
That was funny, and unfortunately very realistic ;)
Ha, love this! Too bad there’s going to be at least one person who reads this and doesn’t get that it’s meant ironically.
I just hope that one doesn’t end up being my client…
And for the record while the Neilsen crack is meant to be ironic (I assume) it’s actually one of the reasons I discount him entirely. Even given his reasoning for doing it.
I have to admit … I was getting really mad and frustrated as I read the email I received of this post. when I got to Test in IE6 only I wanted pick up my iphone and throw it at the poor soul walking through the door of the coffee shop.
I came to the blog to post on how ridiculous this was and only then realized it was a slam. Guess I should have read all the way through myself.
“I heard from a friend that it involves usability labs, videos, two way mirrors and ‘facilitators’ (whatever those are). That all sounds pricey to me!”
and
“With that in mind I always recommend that sites are built entirely with Adobe Flash.”
haha. :D… The sad part is that I’ve been faced with people that would read the above 10 points, nod in agreement and insist that they are all followed to the letter.
Very funny!
Thanks for making me laugh.
Mark
wow, some of this i agree with, others not so much.
you have to consider seo, end users and designing comps up front for free? omg, i use to do that UNTIL they were stolen and used without my permission.
I read the first few points and the second and the third, slowly getting more and more annoyed as I worked my way through it!…even almost, almost stopped reading and closed thunderbird up! but oh no i wanted to hear more. Has Mister Boag had a bad day? is he starting to really loose his marbles!? I continued all the time thinking this must be a joke, almost tempted to scroll vertically another 475px to the end in order to see what this is all about. but as soon as i got to “With that in mind I always recommend that sites are built entirely with Adobe Flash.” I know I could start to calm down and then i just wanted to continue reading as fast as i could in order to hit the punchline!
Fantastic post, had a really busy day and that was the perfect end to it!…cheers ;)
@Dan (www.simplebits.com), have you noticed http://www.stopdesign.com looks very familiar as well???
After figuring out this is one long sarcastic post, I can’t help but wonder in this economy clients could actually get away with behaving like this.
Not every web designer is a “rock star”, so if they want work in this environment they might actually have to buck up and tolerate most if not all of these client traits.
I guess that why I like charging by the hour.
A great article, if only some clients got these points (feel free to plug your book – this article lends itself perfectly to it!)
I try not to, wherever possible design ‘personally’. I do give considered reasons to the choices I make, rather than ‘I liked have a swooping bit in the header’. It gives the Client less of a reason to dislike it if you can give reasoning to it.
Note to self: Hand this out to tall existing and future customers.
Second note to self: See if shotgun trigger can be reached while barrel is tucked inside mouth.
No seriously that is one hilarious post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hilarious read! You had me up until “All sites should be built entirely with flash.” I was beginning to question your view on these issues but that sealed the deal. I’ve definitely worked with several clients in the past with similar mindsets.
Great stuff!
I dont work for clients who expect a design upfront before paying!! I refuse. That’s what my portfolio is for. If they dont like the portfolio then they can move on. The rest were funny. Love the FOLD, as it truly does not exist. What about the people browsing on their blackberry!
gotta love it
Man, you made my day. Thanks for the post.
I’m a bit worried that people won’t read this article in it’s entirety and/or fail to identify that it is satire.
I don’t understand all the laughter. All of you seem to think this is funny.
Great sarcasm… but you know a large amount of clients believe this. I just hope they don’t take this at face value and actually read the comments as well.
Thanks for winding me up :p
Reading the first point I got pieced off, started to wonder whats wrong with Paul? is that the same Paul who I listened on FOWD NYC.
I certainly imagine your frustration Paul. Freaking awesome post. Gotta love it. Hope clients don’t read it and take it seriously. lol.
OMG! this post had me rolling! I hope this is a joke, at least I will take it as a joke.
“Just in case it wasn’t a joke though, please keep reading”
Reason number #7 sealed the deal for me, you are totally out of your mind, you just can’t make stuff like this up, so funny! The whole trip back to Web 1.0 memory lane is just awesome! Why would your visitors need to know what you really do or offer on your site after all, just let them spend 2 hours figuring it out, its more fun that way!
Also I am going to touch on point number #1. F that! Under no circumstance would I ever spend time to design something for a client for free! My electrician and my plumber don’t just fix my toilet for free, or rewire my house, and only get paid if I like the work that they have done, that is BS! That is time out of my life, that you expect to get for free! How about you come to my house and cut my lawn, clean my chimney, maybe make me dinner while I work on your free design?
Obviously you have been working with the wrong designers, and you obviously believe that designers should be your slaves, designers that are not just “Artsy”, most web designer now days, the right ones, are smart business people that know more about SEO and development than any of you out there! And you will be surprised how much they know about your business, its our job to know your business and your clients! The right designer will listen to you, your needs, your target audience, your goals etc. and then and only then will a plan be drafted out on how to design the site (with enough white space!).
You pay a web designer/developer for what they know and what they do best, if that is not the case then you do not need to be hiring designer, you should be doing your own design, in which case would look like the image in post #7 (“Can I see this design in another color?” What color would you like? “How many you got?”). Trust is key.
You made my day though so funny! keep it up!
very, very glad this is a joke. That’s what I get for just skimming the headings. ;)
This is obviously a joke, and a mighty good one at that. No one could be that delusional.
@Yaili & @Gary – don’t forget when the client sends you the site copy and/or logos as a .pub file (version 2.0, of course – circa 1993.) It’s *rockin’* when they do that!
I agree – you so need to bring this back up on April 1. Too fitting.
At first I was ready to print this article out and drop a steaming on on it, but it’s a good thing I decided to read the comments first :D
I appreciate the satire, however, I’m afraid my superiors have printed this out and are circulating it as a “how to deal with that troublesome designer in the middle office” memo.
Great article. You had me going for a while (I almost had an aneurysm after reading number 3). It’s astounding that people really do think this.
Oh, how misery loves company.
There are times when I would swear my clients go to a seminar to _learn_ this stuff en masse.
I’d show this post to my boss, but I fear he won’t see the sarcasm! :-)
“If you want to be super cautious, add a message to your site telling users it is optimised for internet explorer. Users can then download that browser if they want to see your site.”
what’s wrong with you? did you hit your head when you was a child?
well done sir, well done.
While I agree with most of these, I must strongly disagree with number 9. You should always test on different browers especially that Firefox has been doing extremely well since its recent launch of their latest version. According to W3schools.com, Firefox has a 45.5% in January 2009 while Internet Explorer (7 and 6 combined) has 42%.
you should write also something about the appearance of designers.
i think they just buy all the hip cloth, bags and computers because they want to impress.
in the end they just look good and make bad design.
i now this because, i got a job in this company as a marketing director. i know nothing about this but that doesent matter. i have to crowl in my boss ass and wear a suit.
Holy crap!! I was just starting to formulate a rant comment, when I got to about point 4 and realized it was humor. Good one!! You got me… ;)
I especially liked the IE6 point. BHAHAAHAH!!! LOL.
I know I know… that’s what I get for skimming… my bad.
All points sound like a joke :) specially the one about IE and about stuffing the home page with the max info and then wonder why ppl run away after seeing the home page :-))
It makes me wonder how many numpties read this article, and don’t even read any of the comments before they post and make total fools of themselves. It’s quite shocking reading the comments, I dispair!
So as a web design student at Michigan State, I seriously thought this was real…and was scared out of my mind that this could be potentially what I’d be getting into…I didn’t get the joke till the comments…scared the shit out me…seriously
Good post now that I know this is like a Screwtape for web design
Top notch article, indeed.
No love for Flash animations or Javascript snow? That is a must have if you want to burn your client’s computer.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! *dies*
Awesome post.
If only the corporates could read the sarcasm here…
Fantastic read!
I had a client just last week who offered to supply me with their logos. When I opened the files it was clear they were scanned off the business cards!
Thank you so much for this post, is really good to think twice about what people are doing nowadays! Keep going! Thanks and good projects!
I get the sarcasm though I got scared when i started…
People who got worried about their clients reading this, i would say don’t worry. Remember they don’t read beyond the fold. This page has a lot of scary things below the fold. Chill :-)
Reading these comments – somewhat worrying that it took some people up to 3 or 4 to work out it’s satirical! Surely the bells were ringing by “come up with great work out of thin air” or “not constrained by understanding the business”!
Very poignant article, how I wish I could send this to some clients! Sad thing is I don’t think they’d work out it was satire even by the end…
First time on your blog, just followed a tweet from @smashinmag to come here…
Every point got me fuming more and more, you were sounding like the guys who think they have a clue and like to make a big noise about it, and just want to get a work done, but don’t care how badly it is done as long as it is cheap and can pass as something other than under construction.
I intended to put in a comment that you need to change the title a little bit instead of “Good designer” you should use “Good for nothing designer”.
Then I read that comments to release its a satirical post. a bit slow of me there.
Probably you should do the title change, just in case another slow joe comes around and leaves without reading comments. LOL
Best point was about fitting everything on the homepage, and using blinking text to grab attn. Great Screen Shot.
nice. you almost got me… funny guy.
yes man you are right !!
you only need a monkey with psd-to-xml knowledge & some bananas… and your boss directives
thats all
You’ve done it now!
That’s awesome! Skim reading the article I was bubbling with anger and then realised!!
For those interested. This post was inspired by a talk I gave recently at BathCamp. You can now watch a rather dodgy video of me ranting…
http://boagworld.com/for_those_of_you_hard_of_humou/
I can’t believe how gullible I am. Took me until about point 6.
Oh my goodness. This was so funny, and I’m sure it was good therapy to write it! The committee one really struck home with me. Yes, always remember to let your officers with accounting and education backgrounds make the web site color decisions. After all, they’ve worked their way into management positions, so they must make good decisions in all things, including the best way to design the web site.
Thank god. I have been doing my work like this for years and everyone said I was doing it all wrong. Finally I have some proof I am getting it right :P
Great post!
Seems you are not meeting users and one frustated designer who want to run his thinking no matter what people want
A lovely angry rant. Spot on tho. Let it all out!
hahahhahhaahah, made my day!
Hmm; Now if I had a way to send this out to a hundred people; and somehow prevent them from reading your comments; I wonder how many would ‘get’ the joke here vs. how many would seriously agree with you on one or more of these topics; ‘literally’. Could be an interesting measure of how mature the software development and especially the design world is after-all. :)
Hmm; Now if I had a way to send this out to a hundred people; and somehow prevent them from reading your comments; I wonder how many would ‘get’ the joke here vs. how many would seriously agree with you on one or more of these topics; ‘literally’. Could be an interesting measure of how mature the software development world and especially the design world is after-all. :)
great tips
*sigh* I think I will crawl under my desk and cry now. I’m so scared someone is going to overlook the warning about your writing being tongue-in-cheek – and then call ME…
v funny – made me laugh out loud. the jakob nielsen screengrab caption was the best bit!
How blissfully antiquated and ignorant. If the goal was sarcasm it was lost on me. About half of your list is spot on. The other half is well, not. I will admit to being a web designer, which I believe disqualifies me.
I have a client who I’ve been working with for over 5 years now, and I still can’t get them away from the “fold”, cluttering up the homepage and screwing with the integrity of the site by adding SEO paragraphs. I hand them a clean design and within weeks its mangled. The main one that kills me is their insistence on putting stuff above the fold. I ask them: “Where is the fold?” I get a different answer every time. They always pay promptly, though, so that’s the reason they are still my client.
I posted this article on my facebook because I think it’s great and although there’s the slight chance someone may not get the joke, I think majority will because all of my contacts have a good sense of humour. Thank you for this Paul, it’s great and makes a day on the job that much more enjoyable.
There’s no WAY designs are more likely to be better/accepted just because the first step is done for free. It simply doesn’t work well in reality with most of the clients so:
If they are ’so successful’ that they can’t spare the time to do unpaid work for me, then I don’t want to work with them.
This actually sounds like BS, in my opinion.
and remember to use post-it to communicate effectively with your team.
Now, this is why it’s not good to skim thorugh the text on the web all of the time: It can make you MISS THE POINT sometimes, like me with my comment.
Awesome!
Lost me at pt. 1
I stopped reading after I completely disagreed with you on #1. Any good designer doesn’t need to put up with speculative design for free, there are enough clients that want said “good designer” on their projects they are willing to pay for everything including spec design. Are you honestly serious. LOL. Wake up.
This is all some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Is this a joke?
Ok.. I should finish reading.. I too fell victim to skimming and missed the point.. goon on ya!
Oh How ‘b’ aka Ben Cline has forgotten to read the entire post or have a sense of humor like so many of these other commentors.
Great article, DUGG!
You’re right, designers would never share this information with clients – mainly for the reason that this info is completely off base, wrong, and flat out retarded.
1. Speculative Design – Work is never free. If I ever had a client that wanted ’speculative design’, I wouldn’t take that client. It’s ridiculous to ask for free work… and offensive. The most a client should get free from a true designer is maybe a little sketch on a napkin.
2. End Users – Yes, you should be hung up on end users. That’s who you’re website is catering to. But you’re right… if you don’t want to make money… then don’t worry about your users.
3. Gut instinct? Are you kidding. Most people who actually hire designers have absolutely NO UI or design training and understanding. Your ‘guy instinct’ basically means very little in the presentation of your product/service. But again, if you don’t want to make money… don’t worry about testing.
4. A committee for feedback. This would be called testing and is basically the same thing as #3. So on one hand, you say don’t rely on testing, but on the other hand, you say test… what gives?
5. Detail – I assure you, and good designer will pay the MOST attention to detail. That’s how you become ‘artsy’ – through observation of details. Designers know exactly if things are a pixel off or spacing is not right, etc… The detail is what differentiates a good designer from a bad one.
6. Corporate style guides. Whatever… I could really care less about this one. If the client wants to use corporate guides, so be it. Not a big deal.
7. Homepage – yea… great advice, let’s make the homepage (the first impression) the most cluttered, and give our users an information overload. Again… great advice, if you don’t want to make money.
8. Above the fold? All content? People are used to scrolling a site. It’s second nature. But yea, if you want to cram it all above the fold, fine by me.
9. Test in IE6 only? Are you kidding? THE WORST ADVICE! Ad of January 2009, IE6 is only used by 25.7% of the population and this number keeps decreasing rapidly. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
10. SEO vs. Design – Finally something that actually sounds intelligent (and probably only because you used an acronym). While SEO is important… users aren’t going to stick around if your site looks like a cesspool of links and SEO garble. Design is hugely important to retain users. Again, an overload of info will turn anyone away. It needs to be cleanly designed as well. Any good designer should be building a site with SEO in mind anyways.
This is, by far, the most ignorant, unintelligent information to provide people, EVER. But, please, if you want your online business to fail… follow this guy’s advice.
Can’t believe how many humorless designers there are, as evidenced by the taking-it-oh-so-seriously comments. NICE work, Paul, just about died laughing partway through #1, and #4 completely slayed me.
Awesome post. Had me laughing :D I enjoyed each point. Linked it from my facebook!
You had me up until building sites with Flash. That’s when I finally clued in. LOL. Nicely done. I agree with another commenter that this would be a great April Fool’s post.
That being said I have had clients who would agree with ALL of these items. It still beats digging ditches for a living.
I was going
Truly, this was an amusing post.
I knew it was fake after #1 but just kept on reading..
I had smoke coming out of my ears until I realized you were joking.
Great article, I started reading and I was like I hope this is a joke. Then I got it. It’s funny to read the comments saying your crazy and they don’t agree with what your saying. They obviously didn’t read the article.
:Stumbled:
@Tim, okay you’re right… I didn’t read all the way through it. Now, that I have… I realized I’ve wasted 10 minutes of my life reading & posting comments on here.
Hey Mapk, while I’m not amazed that you have no SOH, and completely missed the irony of this post, and I can’t believe you took the time to respond to each point with such detail. If you disagree with someone’s opinion online, just move on. How much precious time in your business day did you waste commenting on this post, when you could have been doing something productive.
The fact that you missed the joke just makes your efforts that much more useless, and that much more hilarious. Never forget: the internet is serious business. Thanks for the lulz.
Wow… is this a joke ? If not, I’ve never seen so much bullshit in a single page (and I’m not even a web designer, I’m a programmer).
Paul, perhaps you would like to come by my house some day and mow my lawn for free ? Then, if I think you did a good job, I *might* give you two more houses for you to mow (this time you can charge me). Ok ? =)
Oh, wait… I get it now. I *think* he was being sarcastic!
I’m an idiot. I rescind my last comment. Enjoy the lolz.
I am only a design student i can say that my instructors told us to never cram all the information on the homepage. It looks cluttered and unprofessional.As well as very hard to follow.I actually used the Havenworks website for a class of mine showing what a bad website design is.
The reason nobody goes beyond the homepage of the article writer’s website is because the website looks like it was thrown together and very disorganized.
LOL
Love it! It’s reeking with British sarcasm. I miss England so much.
Nice one, Paul!
I’ve already forwarded the article to a few people.
Its like you’ve tapped my phone line! Only did a spec design once, never again. Funnier still though – the comments from folk who took it all straight and got angry. grrr.
nice joke! I’ve never so much misconceptions about design together. specially the last one, because it’s a key point that a designer doesn’t have “clients”, they work together for mutual benefits
Aaaarggh! I just got out of that committee meeting in #4. Did you have the room bugged?
Confession? this was a really tough pill to swallow, never had words hurt me so much. LOL!
Boy, I was getting ready to post a long reply to this. I kept thinking, does this bozo really believe all this crap??? The irony was lost on me, but I am with you now! Great read if you “get” it.
I wouldn’t consider someone who does spec work to be a professional graphic designer. I cannot believe that this author is educating people to expect such behavior.
I don’t know of any designers that think spec work is a good thing. The client often runs off with the best idea and develops it cheaper. Or they steal elements of different designs to come up with their own. The end product represent stolen ideas either way, and those creative types are not compensated for their time or talent.
I honestly didn’t read the rest of the article, I stopped after this point.
Although I get this is all tongue-in-cheek… why DOES Neilsen’s site look like poop? Seriously, you don’t have to have a crappy looking website for it to be usable.
How does anyone whose ever designed anything for a client think this article was serious? I’m not even a web designer and knew something was up from the first point.
This is the best thing I have ever read. Love it! I’m only worried potential clients will read this and believe you.
Your post just made my day.
I just came back from a meeting with a client who insists we use the same graphics she has on her brochure on her new website – they don’t even look good on the brochure.
OMG I almost posted the longest rant of my life. Then I really sat back and realized this post is laughable. Good job.. I think that clients often times think many of these are true, and it is very sad. I worked for a marketing company for a year and unfortunately my boss and our clients where dicks, knew nothing about web design (they usually had Graphic Design backgrounds.. from years ago) and would do everything backwards… mush like this post.
Thanks for the laughs!
Yep, got up to point 7 with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
I think the design by committee is my favourite one!
AJ
this is the most hilarious thing i have read in a long time. the funniest thing not even being the post, but the comments from the people that didn’t get it. ha! note to those looking for a designer – stay away from these people lol.
for those that got it:
http://www.whoneedsdesigners.com
Unfortunately I have been forced to remove some comments because they are abusive and inappropriate. This is the first time I have ever done this on this site and I hope it will be the last.
I do not tolerate personal attacks on either myself or other posters.
I laughed so hard it hurt!
Great post… I can just see a client now referring to this post as fact as their god given right to how their project should be managed and not taking no for an answer.
:-D
I laughed so hard it hurt!
Great post… I can just see a client now referring to this post as fact as their god given right to how their project should be managed and not taking no for an answer.
:-D
Diss Teh LOLz!
Slam dunk post. Very funny and yet annoying at the same time. *tips his hat*
Please, pretty please with sugar on top… Don’t sue me but I will translate your whole article to Spanish… This is a must read for every client I have ever had! Thanks for this one!
I was completely in shock when I started reading this post. However, I was willing to rock my values a little and try new things. In fact I was reading open mouthed and in completely confused until I reached step #7! I honestly fell for it. I haven’t laughed this much from a tech article, um, EVER! Too funny. Great work!
You DOOMED us all!!!
Good Post Paul.
Took me a few points but was laughing so hard it didn’t really matter after that.
even better are the comments from people (professionals?) who take things far too seriously to actually think for themselves. This stuff happens on a daily basis to all design firms, better you smell the coffee and define what you do and who you want to work with and why.
Point 9 is crap.
Test it only in IE?!? What about Firefox? Safari? Opera? Can we really ignore those users? Not to forget that Mac users don’t have IE, unless they are running a virtual machine or other methods, and I doubt they will do that just to view a site in IE since they can use a better browser like Firefox or Safari.
Point 1 is relative.
You can’t trust every customer. Stealing ideas from an expensive designer to go make it by a cheap designer is not right. I hate that, especially when I have to deal with them, and only thing I can do is to reject it.
To the Muppet that wrote this, try viewing this site in Google Chrome then you will see why cross browser capability is needed.
Twat.
I love the idea behind your post. And I have been for sure practicing the same kind of humor.
But today, seriously, I am not even sure it is a descent joke as so many people will think this very way and / or would read it first degree…
A bit like “Starship Troopers” which is supposed to be a denonciation of militaristic facist behaviors : 90 % of its public is made of supid 1st degree action driven watchers not missing the point of building up an pro-opinion thanks to it.
Of course your post is funny, as a private joke. I think. and the entire web is not exactly private.
So maybe #11 : Find your public : don’t miss the occasion to be misunderstood for the sake of building up a cultural identity. Because it is so hip to be cool dudes laughing at a sincere dumm ass who don’t even know is wrong and to make sure he stays that way. The best way to have 10 fans is to share the hate for the 150 others.
have a good day.
let me add :
Your more or less almost funny post has one undeniable quality :
It is a wonderful support for thinking about webdesign in general.
sincerely.
very good and useful post. Thanks.
Sorry Pauly,
But you lost me at #1. Too many sneaky business people are tempted to take the design and have a college student develop the actually website for dirt cheap as a resume builder. Time to rethink.
Thanks,
Not Super Dave but Supa Dev! Holla!
Wow. Reading that article reminds me of the first time I got RickRolled. How did so many people miss the point? Even after reading all the comments???
Nice.
Haha! I love this! Awesome job!
Thanks for the laughs – that made my day! #4 gets me all the time.
This was physically painful to read.
Brought to mind for me the client who seriously asked of their new website in development, “Can you fax it to me?” presumably they would have wanted me to re-fax it to them every time I made a revision too!
A great read though, thanks, i particularly liked the committee drawing, I’ve had a few of those too!
All the best and have a great day you guys :-)
Rog
Although he missed the point, Luke was right in that Chrome seems to have trouble with this page.
I guess you’ll need to find a Windows machine to check it on – want me to hold your MacBook Pro while you do it? ;)