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Old 06-28-2009, 12:47 PM
Dcrux Dcrux is offline
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Default Re: CRM Web Design Review

Quote:
It is the content and the layout of the words that I hate.
This can be corrected, as stated, by making two or three key pieces of content permanent at the top of the column so posts make sense. There are other problems, but they also can be worked out.

If I, as a user, Think CRM is one thing, and your site tells me different ...that's a little cognitive speed bump. If you tell me the app's name was to foster a human relationship, and the app's structure seems to act like a jackbooted thug "forcing" the user ...that's another cognitive speed bump. Put videos in another section when they should be embedded in the blog posts ...that's another bump.

Enough of those speed bumps and site visitors leave.

However, there is a school of thought which says such critique is unwelcome because some "thing" called design and content are separate.

I feel, and it is a debatable point, design is holistic and concerns everything -- from whether a blog is the proper format for a visiting user to start from; to the words chosen and what they telegraph about the app.

You can't as a designer, separate everything from everything else, the whole is "The Design," not just the components you did yourself.

This is not a mainstream view. But my larger point (which goes beyond just this site) is separation of style from content, content divorced from strategy, and structure apart from everything is a problem. Design either creates a coherent whole, or it becomes a very nice looking jumble of ideas and incoherent strategically.

Sure there is an aesthetic 'style," but that is insufficient for design. How things are put in some posts directly conflict with what (seems to be) in the app. There doesn't seem to be a singular objective, and the reader is forced on a scavenger hunt to find the information they need to make a decision. (The design term here is "information scent.")

It makes no difference if every other designer -- who is never going to be a potential customer -- thinks the more superficial elements are just fine. They are fine. But users don't care about the superficial. If those doing these sites insist on having nothing to do with objectives, strategy or copy, don't call yourselves designers. Call yourself stylists if all you do all day is skin Joomla or Wordpress.

But then this is the same mindset which took the three perfectly good words Content and Management and System, then made their combination meaningless. Try anthropomorphizing the user for a change ...and the software will foster a more humanized connection with the user automatically.

Related Reading:

A List Apart -- for people who make web sites -- Calling All Designers: Learn to Write! Text is interface. Deny the connection copy has to "the design" and you relegate design to the very most inconsequential trivialities. You're not responsible for anything, but nor can you charge very much for anything you "contribute."

Creating Twitter Backgrounds in Aviary and the post Understanding Layers combines multiple media and coherent structure for users. Pictures, video and text actually go together and support each other. It's not all about an irrelevant stock photo.

Last edited by Dcrux; 06-28-2009 at 01:13 PM.