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Design Guidelines Not a Pretty Picture
Specifying guidelines for Website design can get ugly. Take
a wrong turn and inane comments such as "keep the total number
of bytes of your GIFs and JPGs small," or "be consistent
in your design elements through your entire site" creep in,
leaving some readers thinking "Duhhh" to themselves.
Still, a few comments here might be helpful, particularly to small
or start-up companies. So, at the risk of sounding dumb to wise
readers, here are some suggestions.
One, start with the logo. The organization's logo is its primary
visual representation, so its look and colors must be reflected
in the Website. We've worked with a few companies whose next
comment is, "Well, we don't really have a logo." Fine.
Get one. Or, if no one likes your current logo, launching a Website may be a good opportunity to develop a new look for the company,
beginning with a new logo.
Now, many organizations, when faced with "Ooops, we have
no logo" have no problem paying a designer to develop a logo.
The problem starts when, an attractive new logo on hand, the company
leadership thinks, "Hey, now our IS guy can design our Website." Wrong. If you don't have someone on staff who can
design a great logo, then you don't have someone on staff who
can design a great Website.
It's a question of core competencies. Let designers design and
programmers program. Maybe Leonardo DeVinci could've done both
for a Website, but in five years of Web development work, we
haven't met any Leonardo's in our business.
When you work with a designer for your Website, here are some
pointers that'll help you get the results you desire. For starters,
have the designer produce sample Website designs for you using
Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks. Make sure these designs
are 700 pixels wide, no more. If your designer says "How
wide is 700 pixels?", then you're not working with a the
right designer.
Even the best designer faces three potential handicaps. One,
your logo is ugly. Two, you have no original artwork or photography
available for use on the Website and three, you're not willing
to pay for original, new, stock photography or artwork. One axiom
of advertising that applies to Websites is, "Show the product."
If your product is prickly pear jelly, then by all means, your
Website must show the product -- people want to see what they're
buying.
What if your business is health care? What's the product? Well,
it's a service, of course, so show the service - health. That
is, show people. Research has shown, time and again, that people
are attracted to pictures of people.
If you can afford it, original photography is almost always best,
but often times stock photography will do quite nicely. The Internet
has revolutionized the way stock photography is sold, with many,
many Websites selling stock photography online. Two Websites
we have used are http://www.comstock.com
and http://www.eyewire.com.
Buying stock photography online has many benefits. One, the best
sites have a search function. Two, you can download samples for
trial use without paying a fee. Three, once you decide on a particular
image, your costs will be low because cost is tied to required
resolution. For the Web, generally a resolution of 72 dpi (dots
per inch) will do nicely. Special note: when you buy stock photography,
be sure that you're buying royalty free stock photography. That
means you pay once and it's yours.
Unless you've got artistic talent yourself, let your designer
select the images. Sure, you want to input into the process, but
you'll get the best results if you let a designer choose. Just
make sure that any people in those images match up with your target
market who look like us.
If you can afford it, have your designer show you two or three
possible looks for your Website, both home page and second tier
pages, and choose from among those. When you choose, be sure to
get out of your own shoes and project yourself into the point
of view of your target market. If you're lousy at doing that,
pull together a half dozen people who are your target market and
get their input.
Lastly, while you're going through this process, make sure your
programmer is on the team, reviewing the designer's work to make
sure it can actually be executed on a Web page. For example, in
print we can wrap copy around a curving or irregular image, but
on the Web, at present, we have no ability to program that way.
There are probably dozens of ways a designer can give programmers
headaches or at worst -- mission impossible. So keep the programmer
in the loop, even in the design phase.
The above advice was designed to be more helpful than ugly. Your
goal should be to do all you can to have a visually appealing
and functional Website, not an ugly one. Get the picture?
This article first appeared as a column written
by Dave Tedlock, NetOutcomes' president, for the Inside Tucson
Business, The New Mexico Business Weekly and the Idaho
Business Review.
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