What are the key features of designer-centred design?
- It looks great
- It doesn’t do the job it should be doing
It’s like finding yourself with a really stylish teacup—but the tea leaks out of the bottom of the cup. Or coming upon a breathtakingly elegant bridge—but it sways dangerously when you try to walk across it. You get the idea.
What are the alternatives to designer-centred design?
- Client-centred design
- Visitor-centred design
Clients are always asking us to incorporate features which we know are not in their best interests. As far as we can, we should calmly and professionally argue them out of such requests. Or they may ask us to change something which we know will work for them as it is. Ditto.
However, if we can’t persuade them, their site ends up being an example of client-centred design. This is better than designer-centred design, but only just.
The holy grail is visitor-centred design. Everything on such a site makes a visitor’s journey through it easier and more satisfying. And everything is on the site because we have spent a fair bit of time working out who its likely visitors and wanted visitors will be, and what they will want from the site. The client gets a site which works, and the designer gets a site to be proud of.
I have identified the obvious questions we need to ask ourselves again and again in this blog. Including my last post.
There I also said that I had one glaring example of designer-centred website design in expatriate Spain to present to you. It will be named and shamed in my next post.