The Art of Effective Presentation
The more and more I read about websites, in the area of usability and accessibility, I begin to wonder why so many people avoid their users’ needs.
As a web developer, what stops you from actually focusing on creating an effective site? Is it because you don’t know all the issues? Is it the client’s budget? Is it that you don’t think a client will care about these things and just wants you to get a website up for them, or is it something else that I’m overlooking?
My guess is that all of these things play somewhat of a role in developing an effective website.
Let’s take each question, one by one, and see if we can’t figure out what the real issue is.
1) Is it because you don’t know all the issues?
More than likely this is very much the case. There are just so many hours in the day to be working, and trying to research the issues of effectiveness doesn’t seem like anything that you have time for. It’s simply not that important.
As for finding the information on creating effective websites, I would argue that it’s not in front of people enough. Not only for us, the developers, but for our clients; however, I’ll talk about that later.
What is out there are numerous books talking about nothing. These books get picked up and teach you pointless old methods of development. You put this attribute here, and that tag there, but only if you want to. If you don’t want to, who cares? The site will still show up in the browser and your client will be happy with an online presence.
2) Is it the client’s budget?
It doesn’t matter if you develop $500 sites or $500,000 sites — there is always the question of, “Can I really charge for this?” It’s obvious to charge them for a design and to charge them to actually code the site, but asking them to pay for usability and accessibility is one of those things we either dismiss or place pressure on ourselves to just KNOW what will work for them, and what doesn’t.
Just acknowledging what will work best for your client is only the first step. It takes research and discovery; it takes really understanding your client’s audience and audience needs in order to offer up recommendations. It takes time, and for that you should get paid.
3) Is it that you don’t think a client will care about these issues?
So often I hear another developer say to me, “Well, they didn’t ask me for that so I didn’t even talk to them about it.”
I hate those words with a passion. They are the clients and we are the developers/professionals. They came to us for a reason and that is to develop a website. If they could do it they would have, but they have no idea what it takes and what is actually involved. This even goes for those people who think they know what is involved, but still hire you.
It’s your responsibility to not only put online what they ask for, but to educate them on what they should put online and how exactly it should be placed online. Sometimes the client will want you to put something that they feel is important on their website. If it won’t help their presence online ~ you need to explain to them that it isn’t a good idea ~ don’t just say ok and complain about it later to your geeky friends.
To answer the question of whether a client cares about the issues or not in a different way ~ ask them why they want a website. More often than not they will say for better exposure or to better communicate with their customers.
If this is the case, they very much care. They may not realize it at first, but you need to explain to them what exactly they should be doing and discuss both the issues of RIO and ROX.
If your client’s customers aren’t happy ~ your client isn’t happy. If your client isn’t happy, you won’t be happy. You’ll be stuck listening to them tell you what kinds of things should be on their website that will make their customers happy. More often than not, you’ll continue making ridiculous changes to the site’s color, or adding new images to the site and completely avoiding the real issue of why nobody is happy ~ that their information is not being presented effectively.
