The
purpose of design is to facilitate communication. Choosing what to
communicate is the first step.
It's risky to start a design before
paying close attention to what a site will feature and why.
A good site design creates a
structure that enables a clear two-way dialogue with all its users.
Content is our
problem
A lot of designers think that web
design is about the interface, and that content is what's added on
later, or else it's "the client's problem".
I've seen designers argue that the
content must be changed to fit the way the site was designed. This only
represents the designer's failure.
Designing for the content should be
the designer's problem and focus, because content is the key to
success.
Remember the purpose of design: To
enable communication between the consumer and the content.
Content is what it's all about.
It's content that makes a site work,
flow and communicate well with the right tone. That makes it the web
designer's problem, because effective communication is our problem.
It's our job to maximise a web site's
effectiveness and that means understanding how users will interact with
a site's content.
Designing for communication
It always helps to have a framework
to start from, so that we're not designing into thin air. A good way to
build a framework is to list what a site has to say, and then
prioritise those messages. I like to picture an active two-way
conversation between the site and the user.
