Re: Fw: Front Pages

At 03:31 p.m. 08/29/98 -0700, Leslie J Owen wrote:
>Web design is currently very competitive at certain levels. To stay in
>business (make a profit) means meeting a client's requests.

Agreed.

>Many businesses
>moving onto the web have never worked with a designer before--their concept
>of design is to walk into Office Depot and order logo number 63 for their
>business cards.

Which is why it's scary how easily ignorant or dishonest web designers
can take advantage of their clients.

>They also really don't understand the variety of
>browsers/operating systems in use, and the restriction that places on design
>possibilities.

Yes, and it's the responsibility of the web designer to deal with these
issues, and explain carefully to them what's required.

>Many do want bleeding edge technology--they've done some
>surfing, and they like the animation on website "A."

The ethical designer-for-hire has an obligation to explain the
implications of each new bleeding edge technology.  It usually goes
something like this:

     "I can charge you an extra 50% to create something that
      probably 20% of your audience will appreciate, which won't
      contribute any to the usability of the site -- and may
      in fact detract from it -- but it will look very cool."

>And any explanation is
>quickly forgotten, when they're at dinner with their brother-in-law, who
>wants to know why they've got such a booorrring web site (does anyone think
>the response is "Why, I want a web site that is universally accessible!")
>The Monday morning call is, "I'm moving my website over to company x,
>they're going to make it more exciting."

Actually, have you seen the commercials running on (American) tv
lately?  I think they're by IBM, but I may be wrong.  They show
some young hotshot talking about dancing animation he can make for
a client, but the client asks about integration with various systems,
etc -- and the designer looks stupid and says "uhh...I don't know
how to do that."

That's the rub, you see.  Visually exciting websites only do so
much for you.  What are the most popular and useful websites _you_
use in a given day?  And how "exciting" are they?  I go to Yahoo
and CNN constantly, and animation and fancy colors are a _distraction_
there.

It may not have caught up with you yet, but many major sites are
going _from_ "exciting" _to_ more useful, more "plain", more
accessible designs.  If a page looks "cool" but doesn't meet the
objectives of the site, it's worthless.

Note, though, that I'm not promoting "ugly or boring" -- it should
be noted that just as the average brochure isn't a huge SPLASH of
color with 3462919 different fonts and CRAA-AA-AAZY artwork, the
average _good_ graphic design does not equate to an ugly mishmash
of badly done animated gifs.

(This is a problem with discussing theory of web design with anyone
who considers himself an artiste'; most of the people who try don't
actually do that well with true artistry, and produce really bad
artwork, even by artwork standards.  And yet, they think their
stuff is great, so if you criticize them, obviously you're trying
to take the world back to the age of Mosaic 1.  This isn't directed
at Leslie in particular.)

>Satisfying a client's requests comes before the concept of universal
>accessibility.

Sure.  But are you going to be honest and tell your client what's
up, or are you going to blindly nod your head and say, "oh yes, if
we do the whole site in Java, it will be excellent!"?

>And if a client wants a website feature that means the site
>doesn't meet the standard for universal accessibility, who will say no?

Do I count?  If a client wants something _and_ they realize the
true cost of doing it, I'll give it to them.  However, I won't do
what many other web designers do -- not meaning Leslie in 
particular -- which is to ignore issues of accessibility whenever
my eyes turn to little "$$"s, because I know I can charge more for
Java applet programming.

>I would be interested in knowing the opinion of the people whose day job is
>designing for businesses, compared to the opinion of the people who work at
>a University, or who design for a hobby. Those groups operate under
>different constraints.

Cool, you've got it from me, and I've designed for businesses for
years. :)

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn(at)idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
For your user-defined stylesheet: .GeoBranding { display: none ! important; }

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