The Artistic Outlaw

November 27th 2008 / learned, shared

We’re building web-sites wrong

I view a lot of web-sites everyday. I build a lot of web-sites every year and I can safely say we’re all doing it wrong, including me.

We are building web-sites with too much emphasis on visually pleasing ourselves, our clients and the potential surfer/user(s). We are ignoring content almost entirely.

There are an enormous pile of reasons (read: excuses) for this crazy workflow. We are all guilty of at least one or more at any given time. The copy/content is not available at the time of the design phase, no one knows what the content will be, you started strong got bored and just towed the line to get it off your calendar resulting in boring content placement and design, etc… and so on.

We should be solving the problem that is the presentation of content, not the placement of content within the presentation.

Wireframes, let alone design comprehensive dummies should not begin without a full content document. And I’m not talking about a vague notion of content and where it might go. I’m talking about a document that outlines final copy and contextual images and their importance.

I’m talking about examples of typical blog/news posts. I’m talking about a document that says we want this form, with this functionality, and this is what will happen if the form is filled in wrong, and here’s what happens when it is good to go, and here’s what happens after the submission, etc… and so on.

We need to see the problem in it’s entirety prior to trying to solve it. We cannot do our jobs to the best of our ability when we don’t know the problem we are solving.

Let’s stop spending so much time trying to please clients & users visually in the beginning and start figuring out how to please clients & users long term and with lasting solutions that are at once visually stunning and attentive to the needs and flow of the content.

Web-sites are content.

November 16th 2008 / learned, shared

the e-commerce situation

I’m fed up.

I’m tired of wanting or more often needing to buy something online and being forced to jump through a series of tiny hoops of the “on-fire” variety only to be told that I made a mistake somewhere along the way, yet said mistake is a guarded secret and up to me to guess where it was made and repair it before I can move forward and finish my purchase. I’m likely already pissed off from the process and fit to leave.

Perhaps I have less patience for this ridiculous circus than your average consumer, because I’m a web developer and know it’s possible to make a form simple and easy to use. A form that can tell me, the user, exactly what I did wrong and even give advice on how to fix it. A form that looks nice and functions better.

I have yet to experience an online shopping system that made me feel good about my purchase, let alone left me smiling and wanting to buy more. Even Amazon falls short, sure they get close, but they certainly have issues and they are clearly not sharing their knowledge or experience with other online retailers.

There has got to be a better way, a better process, a better checkout experience.

I’m not going to just gripe about it. I’m going to solve this problem.