By now, you’ve heard the old saying, “Content is King.” And it’s true – effective, strategic content is ultimately the most important component of a Website. However, often times the term is misused and abused either through lack of understanding of the concept itself, or a willful pursuit of an alternative agenda.

While I’d like to pursue the subject of content in another post,  I say the above to say this – “Content is King” is most commonly abused as an excuse to minimize the role of design in a project. Sometimes it is well intentioned, but often the culprits usually either do not understand the importance of good design as a marketing tool, or simply can’t do it that well and thus attempt to minimize its importance and help land a deal. Listen to them, but blindly follow them at your company’s peril.

Specifically, I’ve heard the philosophy tossed around a lot that design should be as minimal as possible – its role solely as a method to transparently interact with content. In all other instances, design should get far out of a user’s way. In such a philosophy, any design element or graphical flourish is gratuitious and inessential.

It’s not that these advocates are incorrect – it’s just that they are describing a specific subset of project that does not represent the Web as a whole (although they may believe – or want you to believe – it does). This is without question the correct approach for an administrative interface or a Web application. But if you attempt to apply this ethos to, say, a marketing site for your Web application, you may have just sentenced your product to a slow, painful death.

So let’s back up from this specific subset and address the role of design in a more general sense. What does good design really do for your Website?

1. It provides credibility and authority. Make no mistake about it, we all form judgments based on appearance – it’s human nature. When we observe someone we deem reputable and professional, we lend more weight to what that person has to say. Design is the same – the impression users get of your company, product, or service is based as much on outward appearance as anything else. It’s simple – a Website that is well designed and appears professional gives potential customers a much more positive impression than ones that do not. Ignore design, and you miss a golden opportunity to rise above your competition.
2. It provides context and voice. One of the primary principles of effective content is choosing a personality or “voice”, and staying consistent to that voice throughout. In this sense, design becomes a vital tool to help get this voice across. How do you want your company, product, or service to appear to potential customers? Formal? Informal? Friendly? Hip? In this regard design and content working together convey this voice much more effectively than content can alone. Without effective design, at best the voice becomes less clear; at worst it conflicts and creates confusion in the minds of your visitors.
3. It gives you a unique identity. It never seizes to amaze me when clients ask for design services and say, in so many words, “we want a Website that looks like Website X.” It completely misses the point. One of the main strategic goals of an effective design (especially, but not only, as a marketing tool) is to differentiate a company, product or service from its competitors. If a potential customer browses your site as well as several competitors, it should leave an indelible impression – they shouldn’t scratch their heads as to which of several similarly-styled Websites they saw that product or service they were interest in. It was on your site.
   Again, often this request is well intentioned – another site does something well and others want to emulate it. It is a natural part of the process. But ultimately your goal should not be to emulate another competitor’s site, but to create a unique user experience that others want to emulate (because they don’t know what you know).
4. It gives a strong first impression. Here’s one dirty fact the “abusers” cannot get around: a visitor forms an impression of your site – and thus your company, product or service – within 8/10 of a second upon arrival. Before a single sentence is read, or a single product browsed, a potential customer has already formed a strong opinion about you based solely on initial appearance. This point is far too important to disregard.

I hope you find this article interesting and helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read it, and I look forward to any feedback you may have.

Photo by xjyxjy.