by David LeMieux
I am going to write a book, or many just an article, about web design for designers. I am sure there are books like this in existence, but I am inspired to do so by a current work project. I am heading up a team of developers and designers to make our website better at communicating our central message and for the moment anything goes. I often times over hear the designers on the team criticizing aspects of the current web site that "just don't make sense," and while I am open to ideas for change (we are starting over, after all), some of the things they think are weird are actually good web practice.
For example, on our main page we have links to other resources, not related to our site. The designers couldn't figure out why we even had those links. The idea of providing the visitor with a way to get outside information doesn't seem to be important to them, it just taking up page space. True, if this were a print medium I would agree, but its not. People come to our site looking for all sorts of stuff and for that reason we give them links to the outside resources they might actually be looking for. This isn't really a big deal and it is easily explained, but little misunderstandings like that can cause confusion when decisions are made.
I just need to remember to be a good leader and teach. Anyway, that is why I would write that article or book.