In web design, setting responsibilities from the start is very important. One of the critical questions is who should decide what your website will look like: Is it going to be you, your web designer, or both of you together? Sometimes clients already have a clear image of what they want their website to look like and are just looking for someone to put their ideas on the web. Some other clients, however, don’t have any ideas at all and expect their web agency to develop the whole website’s design.
Design Always Serves a Purpose
One problem is when a website’s design is created merely for the sake of the design and no thoughts are given beyond that. The design of your website must always serve your website’s purpose. The way your website will look like must be highly influenced by what you want your website to achieve. In most cases, a website’s purpose is to serve a particular group of users. That’s why you should not model a website for yourself but for your prospective users. If your users cannot navigate your website easily then the design has failed. And if your design fails then you need to revisit your website and start the process all over again.
Design Should Be a Process
Detaching yourself from your own preferences and solely focusing on your prospective users’ needs is not an easy task. This is why good design should be a carefully planned process. The better your web design agency is, the better this process will be. After all, you are paying for the service and the least amount of guess work should be involved. A good process highly reduces the chances that your website will fail as described above.
Who Should Decide Your Website’s Design?
Bad design is more expensive than most people assume: The loss in sales and converted site visitors can be huge in comparisons to the costs of designing and setting up a website properly from the start. That’s why the task of deciding the looks of your website should be given to the person who has the best design process. This doesn’t necessarily have to be your web designer since some agencies are more specialized in programming. However, in many cases your designer should have more accumulated knowledge and experience than you in this field.
In the end it depends on what you hire your designer for: Do you hire him to put your own ideas online only? Or do you hire him to develop the design of your website, as well? The important thing that you need to take with you from reading this article is to use a design process that focuses on your prospective users’ needs. As long as this criterion is met, it can be either you or your web designer who decides what your website will look like. However, try to be honest when asking yourself who is better suited for this task: you or your designer?
Source by James R. Pierce
