Web Design

Management Process Guides Top Web Site Design

The strengths of the Internet are also its limitations. The medium is global, but many organizations address the needs of niche segments of highly-local markets. The technology is not just high, but in flux. Many decision-makers leave web site design to Information Technology specialists. This worked when web sites were limited. It will not work now that the competition for regular visitors is intense.

Web site design may follow the principles used to decorate the best shop windows. A high-street outlet for premium goods has no resemblance with the neighborhood delicatessen. Both designs are appropriate for the clientele they seek, and for their locales. Similarly winning web site design has to start with deep insights about the target audience, and the settings in which browsers may chance upon a Universal Remote Location (URL).

Marketing in the brick-and-mortar world targets relatively small segments of customers. Investments in web site design are best spread over clusters of segments that are continents apart. The average software engineer would not be skilled in the art of creative segmentation. Conversely, a global advertising Guru may not be even computer-literate. This is an example of how people with entirely different backgrounds must come together for effective web site design.

Web site design cannot evolve in a vacuum. The aims of a not-for-profit organization are far removed from a corporation that wants electronic commerce and Internet Marketing to drive its future profits. Therefore, the highest echelons of Management cannot entirely delegate web site design down their organization ladders. Design teams need to understand the competitive strategy of an organization, its policy with respect to branding, and the role of the Internet in the composite business model.

The best web site design for the democratic first world can fail entirely in markets with slow and scarce band-width, or with conservative regulation. Feature-laden web sites in English alone and with plenty of video may take longer in emerging countries to open than the customary impatience of typical browsers, disappoint them as well, and anger national governments. It pays to start web site design with primary research in exotic markets, or to have a resource person with knowledge of such places in the team.

Web site design is no guarantee for success on its own. Browsers may never find the site in the dense jungle of the medium. The first glance must interest them enough to avoid clicking away to another URL. Benefits are unlikely unless the browser bookmarks the URL and remembers to return regularly. Content has its own role in the Internet, but web site design has done its job if like a shop window, it makes a passer-by stop, step in, and to spend some quality time.