“Personally I’m not sure about the design – it’s not really my style but if you think it will work then I think we should go with it”
To let me explain why I was so surprised by this comment I need to put it in context:
There are a huge number of different elements involved in creating a successful online business. When we work on large-scale ecommerce projects it can often seem like an insurmountable task at the beginning (I should add that with good planning and a great team we quickly make sense of it all!).
To give you an idea of what’s involved in the creation of a full-scale ecommerce business, these are the major elements:
Branding
Keyword Analysis
Site Mapping
Wireframing
Content Creation
Copywriting
Web Design
Technical Design
Social Media Integration
Product Data Formatting and Input
Product Image Shoots
Payment Gateway Integration
Functionality Testing
Browser Testing
Of all these different elements it never ceases to amaze me how often the only thing the customer is concerned about is the ‘web design’ aspect of the project. Not only that but it is only the very small nuances of web design that concerns most people; ‘can we change the purple to blue’, ‘can we move that bit of text down a bit’, ‘can we make that button a little bit smaller’ etc. Everything else we’re pretty much left to our own devices on and the customer trusts our expertise to be able to deliver these elements.
Now, of course, we want to make sure all of our customers are happy with the end result of any web project we’re a part of, but quite often I do question (sometimes openly, other times I keep it to myself!) the reasons behind opinions on design. Specifically I think: Is the feedback objective or subjective?
An objective opinion will usually be anchored with a really good reason: ‘Can we change the tone of blue used as I think it would make things more consistent with our offline marketing material’
A subjective opinion is usually made for no reason other than personal preference: ‘I think it would look nicer if that was blue, we moved that button down a bit and those photos were a bit smaller’
The problem is, design is such a subjective area – we could design a website, show it 10 different people and every single one of them would have a different opinion about it. Equally if we took all the comments on board from these 10 people, made the changes requested and presented it again, you can be sure no one would like it. The design would become a Frankenstein – a mish-mash result of design-by-committee. Even if everyone did like it I would be worried – good design should rarely please absolutely everyone because, the truth is, if everyone likes it then it’s usually a bit boring.
That’s why it was such a nice surprise to hear a customer tell us that, while they weren’t sure about the design, they completely trusted in our expertise and ability to create a powerful brand and engaging website. After all, with a good brief in place before the project even started, we had a clear idea of who we were targeting and designing for and had really focused on developing a brand and website design that would engage that customer base.
So maybe the next time any of us are presented with a piece of design for anything we’re doing in our businesses we shouldn’t ask ‘do I like this?’ and instead ask ‘will my customers like this?’ Because, actually, whether or not any of us like it personally is kind of irrelevant.
Am I right or am I just moaning about changes to our lovely designs? Comments welcome on that one!
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