In regards to web design, the last 365 days, or so, have been mostly occupied with talk of cascading style sheets and the banter of web standards.
Who's doing it. How to code it properly. Lists of lists of sites that have converted. How to code it properly redux. The Orange book, the Salmon book, and others. And like, oh-my-gosh, like if I see another web standards award site, like dude, gag me.
Now I'm all for a good conversation and exhibition of great design work but enough is enough. Web standards and style sheets are here to stay (ya hooray!). It's time to move on. So let's talk about money and metrics.
If you design all day and never have to worry about sales, traffic reports, bottom lines, or rent, then more power to you. Or if you are a 'design is for design sake' type person then please stop reading this entry — go read a comic book or this month's issue of Atlantic Monthly (and be sure to blog it — oh goody!).
You can style a site six ways to Sunday but unless it does something to improve the metrics for which the design has been made, well it won't amount to a pile of nested tables.
Todd Purgason is the creative director of Juxt Interactive, a well to do design shop in Newport Beach, California. Juxt’s work has won many awards and top spots in design/interactive design annuals such as HOW and Communication Arts. Their design work is top notch and they have earned a reputation for doing excellent work.
Todd's shop has every right to talk about the importance of great design, how to do it, inspirations for their work, design for design sake, yadda yadda yadda.
Yet despite all of their success in the design business, Todd keeps it real in recent interview with Design Interact.
Todd’s focus reminds me of another well known design shop, 37 Signals. At the 2002 South by Southwest conference 37 Signals gave a presentation on the opening night. While highlighting some of the work done by the company, Jason would point out that the design had resulted in some form of measurable success (increase sales or traffic by X%). For each project, he was able to identify what their work had done to improve the bottom line of the client.
Design is only part of the economic success of a website as a whole, but it's still vital to that success. I don't care how much you want to make a site conform to web standards, or do something ultra cool with style switchers; unless it achieves a measurable amount of success, it’s all pie in the sky.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
I'm as guilty as anyone else for this (see "ReUSEIT Contest," "Big CSS List," and "B4TF List"), but it's about time someone came out and said all of the above. Thank you.
Right on.
It's time to move on. So let's talk about money and metrics.
One good article on this is from Adaptive Path's Scott Hirsch written a few months ago, "User Experience Accountability: Assessing Your Impact on Business Results."
from a marxist economic perspective, this would be the commodification of webdesign talking.
alienation, baby, alienation.
Amen to that. It's all part of a bigger mix. That said, the use of standards is largely about making sure stuff works for your customers both now and in months to come. If that's not good business sense, I'm not sure what is.
But yes, I agree.
If you cannot measure some form of ROI, what was the point of the redesign? A client needs to know if users are staying longer, clicking deeper into the site, making purchase decisions more frequently, etc.
Well said, Greg. And Todd rocks. Saw him speak in Seattle once -- he's as creative in person as on screen.
Bob, you're far from guilty. The ReUSEIT competition helped bring web standards to the forefront of discussion back in the day. You're one of the original.
First off I want to ay thank you for bringing this to light. I have been wrestling with finding the balance between usability and design since I started learning designing with web standards, and your words have helped reassure me. As I said I am still in the learning process, do any of you have any recommenations for resources - online or in book form - that deal with useability?
From a Marxist economic perspective, this would also be "The workers control the means of production." Use the means well, fellow workers.
agreed. the conversation needs to be expanded a bit. there's one too many zeldman's around these days.
Ahmaud - your local public library could be a nice free resource. i'm in seattle and we have plenty of books on web usability, etc. our library tends to make good purchases.
Ahmaud, the best resource on useability is Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think.
You might also want to check out A List A Part.
Just for the sake of some variety in feedback and to cause some discussion I'll have to disagree with you Greg. I think beautiful things are better than ugly things even if no one makes a dime off of the beautiful things. I'm kind of surprised to see that every single response is totally sold out to the idea that the only important thing is profit. I always hoped that "It's the economy, Stupid." Was an exagerattion of American obsession with money, but judging from these comments maybe I was thinking wishfully.
Good point Greg. And a politic-less comment pile to boot!
Bet the Republicans don't use CSS and XHTML on their website.
Sorry.
:)
Perhaps, there're people who think that talking and writing about Web standards will "increase [their] sales or traffic by X%".
Yeah, you know who you are! ^_^
~Neko
I'm guilty as well.
BUT - I've said pretty much the same thing you did and do see where your coming from.
Standards are little more than a means to an end but I still feel that they need to be talked about. If nothing else we've got newbies to look after who learn non-standard HTML 4.0 in school and expect to come in to the workplace and wreck shop.
But, all in all, I feel ya.
From a business person's point of view, a designer that can tell me how web standards can cut costs and add to my profit margin by reducing bandwidth, reducing cost of future redesigns, etc., certainly has an advantage over a designer preaching standards for standard's sake.
Great topic Greg!
Hey James,
I think beautiful things are better than ugly things even if no one makes a dime off of the beautiful things. I'm kind of surprised to see that every single response is totally sold out to the idea that the only important thing is profit.
I'm more of a form-follows-function guy, and as such, I think a site, or any structure, can be beautiful simply by the absolute accomplishment of its intended task. It doesn't need to knock me out aesthetically, but if it does exactly what it's supposed to do, and doesn't waste my time or bandwidth with unnecessary bells and whistles, then that's beauty, as far as I'm concerned.
And I don't think the point is profit: I think the point is presenting a clear, accessible site while avoiding waste and redundancy, which are hard goals to argue with. That such sites are going to naturally be more effective (and more profitable) is just another benefit!
Extremely well said, Greg.
I have long been of the opinion that a number of prominent members of the online design community have a vested interest in talking up standards to heights beyond their merits. Like selling books. And reinforcing their guru status. And... oh, I'd better shut up...
I don't think that people who agreed with this post believe the *most* important thing is profit, just that it is a strong factor in determining the success, or failure of a web development project. At least that's how I read it. Call me naive. I don't see anything wrong with quantifying the success of a website based on revenue it generates for the customer. Isn't that one of the primary goals you have when developing a website for a client?
Use of web standards also makes sense in money for the developers of the sites. Smarter coding and use of CSS can drastically reduce the amount of time required to create sites. However, just taking all the nested tables out doesn't really make the world any better.
In order to reduce time and costs to create and mantain Web sites, smart developers always used techniques such as SSI and server side scripting in conjuction with databases. I don't think that the point of Web standards is to code a site faster and save time because, if so, it's years we're already doing that. ^_^;
As for today, I think even my monkey is able to code standards-compliant Web sites, but only certain few talented companies are able to create succesfull Web sites, at least when it comes to traffic and profits. The example brought by Greg regarding 37 Signals is perfect.
~Neko
Firstly, I disagree with neko's comments above that only a few companies "are able to create succesfull Web sites". We've done it for our clients, as I am sure have many of the people on this page.
For us as designers 37signals may be the grail, but I fear that many clients and potential clients out there don't even get the web, let alone how to make money on it. The opportunity that exists for many companies in many different niches is flabbergasting.
Standards are great, website metrics and the ROI of a website are important, but in my experience only 1 out of 5 potential clients really get what can be done with the web, and even fewer are willing to invest enough into a project to do it right.
Pitching standards is such a small part of the whole picture, and from my experience, even improving the ROI of a website is still something visionary; "having a website" is important, "being successful on the web" is, as a goal for the web presence of many companies,
still something out on the horizon.
There's a lot to think about and respond to here. Firstly, it's clear that standards are a good thing, but certainly some projects don't need to be built 'new school' --- and are perhaps more appropriately build with tables as structure (for example). I recently had a client *insist* that 10% of his traffic was NS4.x users, so what can ya do? Frankly, the site was simple enough to make this not a problem. Use standards when appropriate. More all presentation calls to CSS whenever possible and sensible.
As far as measuring design by commercial return, I'm of two minds. One mind says, "Duh! of course. Effective design should prove itself as useful tool in a business' commercial efforts." That said, it's quite possible (and it happens all the time) to do *great* design that is a little ahead of it's time. There are 1,000 factors that affect the business success of an initiative (example, the Apple Newton coming an unfortunate decade before the Palm Pilot), and design, for better or worse, is usually not the determining factor. Sure I'd love to see great design get it's share of kudos when deserved, but I'm loathe to see innovative or risky design avoided because the safe thing to do is design strictly with business goals in mind. Great design captures some bit of *joy* of use --- not just ease of use. I think 37 Signals are fine blokes, but the web would be a (highly usable but) pretty boring place if all sites were designed by them.
Isn't this really about pitching to two different audiences--clients vs. designers? Clients may be able to grasp something of the value of web standards, but numbers are something they can always understand.
Since I work for a single organization I don't deal with a wide variety of clients, but what I do know is that any attempt I've made to explain web standards to the people I work with has gone (almost) completely over their heads. Though I'd like them to get it, it doesn't matter much if they don't.
The people to which most of the web standards advocacy is pitched are other designers, and they're the ones who need to know about it. Despite the very vocal standards movement, there are still a lot of 'late adopters' out there who need to be sold on the benefits.
Seems to me this is really about the need to be able to shift gears between 'why standards are so great/necessary' to 'the measurable results of standards design' (or design in general).
The problem is that in many cases (honesty coming) there are NO measurable results of standards-based design. Many sites are too small, too static, and designed with too short a life-span for it to really make a difference. Sites are still primarily marketing for many organizations, and like a brochure, you need to re-design it every couple years anyway.
Ang, you're right. This is about switching gears.
As designers, we need to continue the advancement of web standards. The separation of structure and design is here to stay — nuff' said. As for the business case for using CSS, you only need to read the second chapter of Designing With Web Standards, where Jeffrey outlines the cost savings that come with standards. No business in their right mind is going to shy away from cost cutting meassures. By the way, it's also a good idea to read the rest of Zeldman's book — good stuff.
My original point was that standards are here, so lets 'switch gears' and talk about the metrics of the web design business. Design does have something to do with the success of a website, whether it's personal or for profit. Airbag is a perfect personal example, I get more kudos for the design than I do the writing. If not for the design, this site would have to change it's name to Deflated.
Designers have gone through several issue du-jour phases. Before standards, the talk was mostly about usability. Before that came liquid vs. static layout, web safe color palettes, Flash, and stupid DOM tricks. All very important discussion but I came to realize that designers haven't really talked about measurable success and how to achieve it.
Perhaps this subject is taboo but if the creative director of Juxt Interactive can talk about it, and if Mr. Fried of 37 Signals can brag about it, why not make this an open discussion. This discussion dominates in other fields, so why shouldn't we at least tinker with it?
What are we doing to increase the success of a website through design or related practices?
What are we doing to increase the success of a website through design or related practices?
Nice to see the point put in more direct language.
The first year of most Marketing classes cover the loop process of measuring , reviewing, altering and measuring...
Maybe effective marketing should be given more attention than simply reporting Site Stats.
I see few sites that ask for user feedback. Nick at Digital-Web did and is acting on some of the feedback. Not an easy task and it does require commitment.
Just one suggestion.
What are we doing to increase the success of a website through design or related practices?
For starters, we're using click thru data on action specific site links/text/copy and 'working it' in the same fasion as you would an Adwords/Overture campaign.
No need to ask for user feedback; run a particular piece of copy, measure it's success/failure, and tweak until happy. It's not that straight forward, and requires some dedicated work, but that is what lies on the road to success, no? ;-]
Meant to also say "Nice to see someone talking about this".
So is it just web standards awards that you object to, or all awards that don't take into account ROI?
How about Flash awards. Flash has been around for a long time and there are plenty of Flash award sites. Do you object to these as well?
How about visual design awards in general? Do you feel people shouldn't be awarded for their creativity and technical achievements in a commercial field, unless they can prove that their endeavours have turned a buck? If so, do you feel that the award should go to the designer who's product produced the highest ROI? If that was so, I'd imagine design firms like Juxt wouldn't even get a look in.
I agree that there should be more awards like the New Media Age effectiveness award that highlight business achievement over design.
I also agree that ROI is very important consideration when building any site. However, awards aren't there to congratulate the designer on how much money they have made for their clients. They are there to congratulate them on how well the site has been designed.
Good design doesn't always mean high ROI and a high ROI doesn't always mean a good design!
I want to say thanks folks for the resources you have pointed out. A friend of mine, who has been doing web development for years, also recommended the 'Yale Web Style Guide'. Again thanks for the help.
Andy, I don't object to awards, be they web standards or movies or best mom. And design awards are great — they’re fun, challenging, and a great way to document the best work being done at the time. Over the years I’ve won a few myself.
And I don’t object to awards for web standards directly. I am merely using hyperbole and valley girl slang to point out that web standards are great, but it's time to pick up a new topic.
Consider for a second the small number (counting with one hand) of major corporates that have switched to a standards-compliant website.
To just nonchalantly drop the ball on educating and spreading the word about the benefits of taking an XHTML/CSS approach to frontend development, as you're suggesting, will be undoing all the hard evangelism efforts that those of us have been involved in over the past year or two. Because let's face it, before then the majority of those involved in the industry didn't even know what the web standards were about.
The web standards community has grown tremendously over the past year and although the standards themselves have gained a large adoption among web developers (and bloggers), it's the big players who remain unaffected.
Doing things right the first time means you can channel the rest of your marketing efforts into ROI, or wherever - since obviously not all sites are focused around making profits, instead of redesigning your bloated, non-compliant, table-based, unusable and inaccessible website every year to fit whichever browser has the largest share of the market.
Seperate your content from the presentation using standard-compliant technologies, and you can market yourself across multiple mediums onto multiple platforms. And in so doing reach a wider target audience.
Mike P. says it best above.
Building the frontend to a website plays a tiny, albeit important role in the success of any web project - and one that we can't simply ignore.
The guys at 37signals just started a similar thread.
I find one of three situations when I am approaching a client project. 1) On small projects I just tell clients that their site will be faster, score better in search engines and that the structure will be much easier (read: cheaper) to change in the future. 2) For large projects I explain that our methodologies adhere to standards and accessibility guidelines that they will need to adopt at some point anyway and that we're looking ahead to the new Microsoft reality of a Web Service enabled OS. 3) My third type of client asks for web standards (usually .gov) and I simply advise them on the best course of action.
For me I completely agree that Standards are nearly ubiquitous. It's necessary, though a little boring for those who have watched the parade go by. I feel like I'm approaching the point where I don't even need to discuss it anymore though. It would be like pitching to a client that I use HomeSite instead of just Dreamweaver therefore I'm more authentic.
The client doesn't care. They run a business. I have to talk to them like I'm any other product/service vendor in terms of value, service and returns.
I vote that the next banner we all wave is Pattern Languages! The new road to success! That or faxing. I just got a new fax machine and it's awesome. You can send anything anywhere and it always looks the same!
My original point was that standards are here, so lets 'switch gears' and talk about the metrics of the web design business.
I understand your frustration, but I wasn't aware that good designers and developers ever lost site of the "metrics". Good designers use their skills and tools to convey and clarify a message. Design problems and skills have changed very little in the last hundred years or so. The tools that allow the web to be effective, and accessible, and even beautiful, are relatively new and under-used. I think it's right that people are excited and talking about CSS.
I'd feel different if I felt that it was distracting good designers and developers from the most important reason for the web. When my blind friend has a web experience that's close to as good as mine then I think we should all move on. But when 95% of the sites I visit are still built with nested tables and a total disregard for accessibility I hope people continue to spread the message.
What boggles and bothers me is the fact so many people seem to amputate the different limbs of the web design body. Good design is the whole package. Good designers deliver the whole package. Good design ties all necessary elements together. Good designers constantly think about goals and metrics, code and technology, and the bottom line, as well as how it all looks.
Nonetheless, there's something about good visual design we can't really put our finger on. It's something abstract, and it's hard to measure. Sure, it'll show up in the results, but many won't be able to say what it is, specifically. But it makes a huge difference in sales, (client)recognition, and the bottom line. And it comes from combining all the necessary elements into a whole that works.