It’s great to design sites around the content when possible. But I find that more often than not content and design must occur in parallel rather than in series. So while it’s true that working with some semblance of “real” copy is better than designing with Lorem Ipsum I don’t think it’s a realistic goal in most cases.

Designing websites shouldn’t be about building frames. It should be about drawing the painting — i.e. understanding the actual content and then deciding on the best way to present it. It’s all about communicating content and facilitating user interaction. You can’t do that with Lorem Ipsum, because Lorem Ipsum isn’t content, it’s a filler. Filler is only useful when polishing off the aesthetic, but won’t help you do the key element of building a website, that is, actually choosing what content to present and how to present it.

Robin: Just a question, not a criticism/counterpoint — why don’t you work with real content on your clients’ websites? For example, if you’re making a website for a blog or newspaper, why not use one of their articles as the base for the design? It’s real — it’s what the rest of their stuff will look like + they won’t care about it because they know it’s their stuff so will focus on how the design works with it. Same thing for any other site; for example, a marketing site, you should have the copy in place before you start the design as it’s the key element that’s going to sell. I’d be interested to hear why you disagree with this to learn more about your stance. Thanks.

Ah we’ll just throw a little text in there later, she’ll be right.

But when you think about it, what’s the page about? The content. Maybe content isn’t king, but it’s the crown prince at least. Content has shape, texture, meaning… it’s part of the design in my opinion. We have a young industry and I’d think more and more this will become obvious to web project managers.

Unless, in the end, their goal is just to make a bunch of pretty CMS containers for their logo to shine on – then you can see the result on many a public sector website for that strategy.

But more often than not it has everything to do with the calibration of their own monitor, or the age of the one they have at home, or other factors that influence the RGB they’re seeing.

Which is kind of why I’m doing an MBA at the moment. I’ve been extremely frustrated working for managers, public and private sector, who really have no idea. One guy in Sydney had every client’s account inside his single account, for example, and he had them all set to world read write access on a Unix box. I said WTF? And he asked what read write access was… now it’s hard to work for people like that because whether its design or technical, they become obstacles to success even though they’d fire your butt rather than admit it.

But finding the balance in a team is hard too… my last team leader was a designer (from print design) and she didn’t take critique very well. It would be nice to find a balance.

Ahh if only I could find time to get out with that D90 Jin, the months are ripping away so fast.

@Steven, you’re dead on about the visual side. I think, as I mentioned to my friends before, design is one of those things that requires no expertise to cast a “criticism”. You just need a “belief.” That’s why a lot people simply use their personal preference when it comes to critiquing, instead of focusing on the goal of the design. This is where I think design and art differ.

I think you caught the biggest point of all – you’re hired for your expertise. Imagine if you hired an architect, doctor, or even a tailor, even a baker and started demanding your way or the highway… they’d show you the highway every time. The web designer needs that same confidence. Because this one comes up constantly…

Unfortunately, what people generally see of our work is an interface (the visual website)… so after a while of familiarity they believe it’s actually really simple and we’re overpaid and probably redundant. What they need to realise is that it looks simple because we used expertise – someone like them could have learned Dreamweaver basics but without the expertise what would be the outcome.

Any business should assess it’s site on business terms – does it meet goals and objectives? This is the one that dumbfounds me because it shouldn’t be us selling that idea to business, they should be insisting on it themselves from the get-go.

When some manager turns up with their favourite colour we need to just say, hey I know you “like mango” but the idea of this site is actually to make money and / or increase market share. Then offer to help them create (for a fee) a private blog in mango, if they so wish… lol.

The expertise of design is also defined on the continuum where one end is the capability of the user and on the other end is the complexity of the issue. As a designer your expertise is in bridging that gap so the user doesn’t realise their deficit in skills.

Great post Jin.

One last thought, pertaining to the business side of things. Last night I met with a client, a friend of mine, to discuss a new website project. To sum the night up, I spent almost a total of 3 hours at starbucks, almost an hour of that was waiting on him. And then as the place was closing up we were finally wrapping things up and ordering the hosting plan for him. But as I drove home I felt disappointed with myself that I didn’t have a more structured approach to that meeting. It felt very disorganized and all over the place. But I know this is just one step along the journey to becoming an awesome “independent” web designer. And I can’t expect myself to get everything perfect on the first, or second or tenth, try. That old saying still holds true, practice makes perfect.