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Boagworld is the blog of web strategist Paul Boag who lives in the heart of rural Dorset (hence the cows). He produces a weekly podcast with UX consultant Marcus Lillington on building and running websites. They also run the web design agency Headscape.

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For those of you hard of humour

Posted in News on: Friday, February 6, 2009 by Ryan Taylor

My last post ‘10 things a web designer would never tell you‘ has received more views than any other article. But what caused me to write it?

If you haven’t worked it out by now ’10 things a web designer would never tell you’ was a joke. Basically it takes all of the points I cover in chapter 4 of my , The Website Owners Manual and flips them on their head.

The idea came about because I was asked to speak about that chapter at BathCamp. Instead of doing a relatively boring talk telling people stuff I hoped they already knew, I decided to spice it up a bit.

For those interested here is a Mike Ellis recorded of my talk, as well as my slides.

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What did you think about this post?

11 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

  • Brad Carver says:

    “’10 things a web designer would never tell you’ was a joke.”
    Huh?? So are you saying they “are” things a web designer would tell you? I don’t get how people “fell for it”, it does say in the blog item that the following post contains things a web designer would “never” tell you. So where is the confusion in that?
    Keep up the good work.Love the show.

  • Matt Hamm says:

    Being controversial always brings in the traffic! I’m still a bit scared how many people thought you were serious.

  • Andrew Pryde says:

    I believed it all… well no actually it was blatantly obvious what you were saying. Nice linkbait thought..
    Andrew

  • Just want to say that I share Matt Hamm’s concern when he says he’s scared of so many people thinking you were being serious on your article.
    It’s really unbelievable that someone on is perfect sense would not notice that you were being sarcastic.
    I am certain that you’ll be having hundreds of comments for this topic.

  • Daniel Gagan says:

    A wonderfully twisted stress reliever for those of us dealing with wacky people that really think like that. :)

  • Matt Oakes says:

    How can people think you were being serious even with your little disclaimer at the end?
    I though you’d gone a bit mad untill I got to number 4 and realised it was all sarcastic. Good article though. Brighten up a boring few hours at college waiting for my friends to finish so I could go home.

  • Andrea says:

    Really amusing. In particular the passage about Santa Maria and his article on 24 Ways made me laugh out loud.
    Brilliant.

  • Yum. Gonna steal this idea for my next blog post: “10 Things Your Software Provider Will Never Tell You”.
    Gregg Dourgarian
    CEO, Tempworks Software
    Outsourced CRM, Lead-Generation and Back-Office Services
    Make more, work less

  • Sarah says:

    What a beautiful presentation Paul – It was so funny.
    I wish I could come and experience you at one of your talks one day – maybe we will meet up just by luck! (Or planned? – Boag-Gang meetup ! That would be fun to do sometime so I can say hello to you and Marcus!) he he he
    Take Care!
    S

  • Daniel@TSD says:

    I know I’m a bit late on this but i have to say that the article made my day! I have to admit that I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not until #6 but then I started laughing. Brilliant work!
    I’m surprised that so many people failed to see that it was a joke, especially people that actually are designers. If a person that has no knowledge in web design whatsoever were to believe it was real I wouldn’t be surprised but I’m astonished to see so many designers writing angry comments. Seriously how could one not see the satire?
    I’m not a web-designer myself, I do some graphical design intended for print as a hobby (no I do not call myself a designer and I do not feel like getting into arguments about stuff like “people without education shouldn’t design for clients” etc) but even I got the joke (and I’ve experienced my fair share of twats who think like some of the points).
    I’m sorry that my grammar might be way out of order, my English isn’t the greatest.
    Cheers from Sweden.

  • Robert says:

    Nice. I think you got your ideas from my former employer. They didn’t take crap from those snotty designers and everything was discussable by committee. Committees really know best.

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Additional Information

Produced by Headscape

Boagworld is produced by the web design agency Headscape founded by Marcus, Paul and Chris Scott. Headscape also has a number of other talented guys who blog. Check them out.

  • Craig Rowe is one of our amazing developers and writes some superb posts on everything from .net to AIR apps.

  • Ed Merritt is a Headscape designer who's blog contains examples of his work and a number of free Wordpress themes.

  • Dave McDermid is a Headscape developer who has an excellent blog. He blogs on everything from AJAX to security.

  • Rob Borley is one of our project managers and blogs regularly on client and project management issues.

  • Leigh Howells is our multimedia design guru (whatever one of those is). He blogs on a mixture of design and music.

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