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Your website is not for you

websmith.studio

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Re: Your website is not for you

#41

Post by topham »

xyzelement wrote: post #28

The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…

This.

Most designers are designing for their customer, their customer is the one paying their salary/commission/contract.

Re: Your website is not for you

#42

Post by almostarockstar »

xyzelement wrote: post #28

The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…

100%.

Ignoring the fact that sometimes founders feel the need to put their stamp on everything, for startups and scaleups that haven't progressed to corporate slog, I think it's near impossible for even the best staff designer in the world to arrive at the optimum website/deck/infographic/widget without founder or leader feedback.

The key ingredient is their insight. That's what sets any startup apart. Otherwise the designer would be the founder.

Re: Your website is not for you

#44

Post by jason_pomerleau »

I’ve found that the larger the company, the less this is a problem. At smaller orgs, it’s common for the owner or leader to have their personal identity tied up in the brand, sometimes a bit too much, which leads to hyper-involvement.

As you move up the food chain, the distance between the people you answer to and the source of the money they are spending grows, personal attachment to the outcome diminishes, and you get a lot less meddling. It’s one of the main reasons our team turns away very small customers.

Re: Your website is not for you

#45

Post by smeej »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #35
big85 wrote: post #6

Perhaps better stated: Your company's website isn't for you, it's to pursue the agenda of your company. Your personal homepage is for you, if you can free yourself from view count as a success metric.

I think it's implicit...

It is, but not until you actually get into the article.

I also assumed the article would be about personal websites until I read it.

Re: Your website is not for you

#46

Post by ragnese »

xyzelement wrote: post #28

The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…

Yep. I've learned that lesson more than once. Maybe one of these days it'll stick... :p

Specifically, I'm not a "designer", but I regularly end up making/changing UIs (mobile apps, web apps/pages, etc). When it comes to design, it really matters who the target audience is.

If you're creating a UI for "mass market", you have to design to a lowest-common-denominator that balances what your average user expects, generally, from UI/UX, and the more you ask them to "invest", the worse you're going to do. On the other hand, if you're making a tool for a B2B (business-to-business) product, you have more freedom to set baseline expectations of what the end user needs to be able to do and understand. You can also expose more powerful options, etc. You can sometimes end up going in very different directions. Even error handling and logging can sometimes be handled differently, depending on the context.

Re: Your website is not for you

#48

Post by dnnddidiej »

almostarockstar wrote: post #42
xyzelement wrote: post #28

The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…

100%. Ignoring the fact that sometimes founders feel the need to put their stamp on everything, for startups and scaleups that haven't progressed to corporate slog, I think it's near impossible for even the best staff designer in the world to arrive at the optimum website/deck/infographic/widget without founder or leader feedback. The key ingredient is their insight. That's what sets any startup apart. Otherwise the…

Sounds like the founder as well as the customers are who the designer should be gathering data points from.

I think anything where a surprise is presented (in design or otherwise) means some missed communication.

Re: Your website is not for you

#49

Post by ubermonkey »

I find that I am AMAZED at how few customer-facing sites have failed to even consider the basic idea of "why is someone on our site?"

A great example is a restaurant site. If a user has to scroll and click around to find an address, a phone number, and hours of operation, the site has FAILED.

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