Design or Content

When people think about getting a website they focus solely on how it's going to look. This is because website owners are so caught up in their own day to day affairs that focus on how the site is going to look rather than what the sites purpose is.

This is a mistake, design is all well and good but odds are no one is coming to your website just to see the design.

Website visitors browse a website to discover a solution to a problem, learn about a product or service, find a company with good credentials, read news, interact with friends or make a purchase. The intention of most website visitors is to read and acquire information.

So when you look at it this way that the primary focus of your audience is to read something relevant why do so many website owners worry about design before content?

So for a second let's say you did start with the design. Whoever is designing the site wheter it be you a family member or a web design company, they are going to provide a design without knowing how much content is going to be placed there. The site is going to be designed based on assumption and not fact. Placeholders which may or may not accurately represent your final product will be put in place to show you an idea. So when you do put your content in you will need to ajust the content to fit the placeholders which will hurt the quality of the information. Or you will have to take on a redesign of the site and redo steps you have already done.

Focusing on design first is a mistake and won't get you the right results. Before you start a website you should determine what this websites purpose is and the best way to achieve that purpose. After this you are going to focus on content and content alone. Do not worry about how you're going to position a banner on your site or where your menu will go the words on the site are what is important now. Now you tie the content and the purpose together and you begin to determine navigation, flow and layout.

Now you are onto the design which should not overwhelm the rest of the site it should complement the information being presented. Your site should be using effective imagery, positioning, and color to bring out your message and get the sites point across.

Through my time designing sites I cannot count the times I have had to wait on content. When a client had a hundred reasons why they wanted the site running before they wrote content, whether it be time, confusion on what to write, or they simply were not happy with a mockup image. Time and again projects have been extended and costs increased to accommodate content coming in pieces, which leads to redesigns and rewrites and just more time and work for everyone involved.

Companies should work with their web design company and take advantage of their expertise. You should work together as a team and share your own respective expertise to ensure the site meets its full potential. If you're not sure where to begin consider contacting your Web designer and bringing them in from the start.

If you want your website to achieve its goals, focus on your content first, and then complement it with great design. Not the other way around

For this article and more visit our web design blog

Trevor Seabrook
Owner

Mythic Tech

e-mail: trevor@mythictech.ca
www.mythictech.ca