We’re starting to set the ball rolling in terms of designing a company’s website. Currently it looks like an antique website that belongs to a bygone era.
And now we want to change the look and feel to give it a more international and modern/progressive flavor. Which is easier said than done. Had it been left to entirely to me, I probably would have designed something according to my sensibilities, but obviously, sine it is a large organization, and anything that affects everyone, needs everyone’s consensus – wherein lies my problem.
I do not know how to impress upon the team, how important it is to have a web standards compliant website! All they seem to want is a nice flashy – Flash-based website that looks good. Since they do not have any idea about the “other stuff” it is being assumed that there is no other stuff – which is typical human behavior.
But for the greater good, I want the website done well because ultimately, tomorrow, when I showcase the website as part of my portfolio, I need to be able to show it around proudly. But I am not sure how to go about getting the website designed in accordance with international web standards – as it is I am anti-Flash simply because I feel that it will not achieve anything for this company in accordance with what they do and the services they provide. Had we been expert Flash programmers, I guess it would have been the practical thing to do to build the whole website in Flash.
I believe we need a clean, simple, brief and a very to-the-point website – but it isn’t my decision.
How do you – the web-designers especially – get clients to decide on “one” theme/style/idea when there are more than one decision-makers?
This post has been edited to make it more politically correct.
2 comments
Welcome to the headbangers club :). Seriously, there needs some education, in subtle ways–at least to begin with. Don’t call it education, call it presentation. And in it, sneak-in the stuff you want to teach with references.
Pass a hard copy—to those involved—with useful links in it for them to chew on when they go back to their desks and look-up those links on the internet.
It’s not a bad idea to have Designing with web standards in your library and bookshelf. More than that keep advocating. Once you get to learn that some people are indeed listening, take the next step, make standards seem important (they are; you have to emphasize for those that are in the dark). Make them understand that purity of content and presentation has a value, incentive in form of better indexing on search results (which can’t be possible in a flash), and stuff like that. If you’re a hardcore standards junkie, eventually, you’ll see nirvana. And you’ll gain that fresh respect in your circle 🙂
Hi Chetan,
Yeah, you have a point – it has to be a slow and steady thing – but when the client has frozen his assumption that web design is a silly thing that needs to be done because everyone’s doing it – and because everyone’s doing it it must be easy – then it’s impossible to break that wall.
I had a crazy request from a client once – that people from one particular geographical area should not be able to view the website – another request was to do something so that none of the client’s competitors could view the website otherwise they will copy it! Jeez!
Headbanging indeed. Pleasure hearing from you!
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