Article Written by Esther Schindler

Becoming Clueful: What You Should Know Before You Redo Your Web Site
Five tips on what businesses should expect from their web designers and developers

Your company's Web site may be its most visible face to the world, so you want to make sure the job is done right. But you may not know how to get the most out of the professionals you choose.

Before you embark on a new web development project, then, it behooves you to learn a bit about the process. I asked several web designers and developers about the most common misperceptions that their clients share. If they could have a single wish come true: that their clients would understand one thing, just one thing, before the client picked up the phone to call, what would it be? Their answers serve as a useful overview of "the least you need to know" about a Web development project.

Understand What You Want

The more clear you are about what you want your Web site to do, the better your chance of getting what you envisioned. That sounds obvious, but web designers report that an inability to articulate the desired result is among their biggest problems. For many web professionals, the most frustating part of the job can be educating the client on how much is involved in transforming the statement, "I need a web site" into an attractive and functional site that conveys the client's message to the client's target audience in a way that speaks to those site visitors.

Naomi Niles, owner of Intuitive Designs, stresses web designers are not mind readers. "Many clients don't know how to explain what they want, so they use the common phrase, 'I'll know it when I see it.' Would you ask the waiter in a restaurant to keep bringing out different dishes for tasting until you find what you like?"

However, you can't design a site by pointing out something a competitor did, and saying, "Give me one just like that." Clients often ask for solutions they have read or seen, says Layne Polzin, CEO of BluSun Media in Gilbert, Arizona. "For example, their host may offer sites included in their solution. But the customer does not understand that thousands of other businesses have used the exact same look for their business, limiting the branding and unique representation," Polzin says.

It's fine to bring along examples of what you like, of course. That all helps. Just don't ask for a clone of Amazon or MySpace. "Surf the web, find things you like. Bookmark them. Whether it's the color palette, the layout, a special way something is done -- be prepared to show us what you like and tell us why. If you can't do that, prepare some keywords and phrases that will convey to us the look or feeling you want your web site to have," suggests Stephanie Sullivan, Community MX Partner and co-author of Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic.

Niles emphasizes the value of saying what you want, rather than what you don't want. She says, "Some clients don't know exactly what they want, so they provide the designers with a long list of the numerous things they don't, expecting the designer to know what they want by elimination. This process is not very practical and it can take forever."

If you have a clear vision, you can save time and money because the site designer doesn't have to start from scratch. But you should expect the designer to spend some time with you, getting you to articulate your goals. (And you should expect to pay for the time this part of the process takes.) Says Polzin, "Our initial meeting with the client has now evolved into an explanation and learning seminar." Polzin's sales team explains that, while the client can buy software off the shelf and some of its development is easy to implement, those tools might not be the right answer for the business or the people who will visit its site.

It Costs More and Takes Longer than You Think

"Clients seem to think that web development is like getting your car fixed in one of the quickfix garages: You agree a fixed price, bring it in, and pick it up after a certain amount of time," says Chris Heilmann, a web developer in London. "In reality, a good web product needs buy-in and dedication from both the development agency and the client."

A serious business web site isn't likely to be cheap. Nor are the experts who have spent years learning both techniques and tools. "Have an idea of how much web sites cost" before you go into the meeting, suggests Riva Portman, web designer at Star Quality Designs in Cleveland, Ohio. Portman says she has had a client ask, "'How much do I owe you? $50?' It is always unpleasant when you have to correct that in a big way."

One misconception is that designing and programming web sites is easy, and shouldn't cost very much. "I don't know how many times I've heard, 'Can you build me something quick -- it can't be that hard!' Another one is 'Once you have everything programmed, will I be able to make all the changes to it?' Sure you can, but you don't even understand how to use an FTP site, let alone any HTML programming," says Todd Richards, a freelance web developer in Omaha, Nebraska.

"When it comes to the Web, people think applications and designs can be turned around in a matter of minutes, and for little cost," says Mike Maddaloni, president of Dunkirk Systems in Chicago. He surmises that it's because of the proliferation of "free" services available on the Web. "It's similar to the desktop publishing 'movement' -- if someone had Microsoft Publisher, they thought they were a designer. And it showed!" adds Maddaloni.

Just because you can slap up a site in a few minutes with an off-the-shelf package doesn't mean it's the right solution for your business.

For Keli Etscorn-Dillon, a specialist in design, search engine optimization (SEO), and e-commerce development, the "it shouldn't be so hard" claim is especially irritating. "Nothing is hard to me; it's a matter of time it takes to do a task. I get miffed when clients, who don't know anything about what we do, tell me how hard a task is. Would you tell your doctor, "It shouldn't be that hard to put a cast on my arm"? ... I'm not sure what it is about Web design that makes people assume difficulty level/costs involved with certain tasks."

Dominick Cancilla, senior consultant at Buck Consultants, an ACS Company in Los Angeles, wishes his clients appreciated how much goes into creating an inviting, useful, efficient Web site. He says, "Good design isn't, 'Make me one that looks like Amazon.' It isn't, 'Wouldn't it be easier just to do everything in Word?' And it definitely isn't, 'But I just saw a banner ad for a company that said they could do my site for $100."

Sometimes, the time and expense is in your hands. Let's say you and the developer set a site completion deadline for two months from now. According to David Robinson, from sypher design in Wales, UK, it's common for clients to fail to see that, "if they miss meetings in which information for the site is shared, and I won't see them for another week, it pushes back the completion deadline a week."

A Web Site Has Several Pieces. Don't Cut Corners.

There are phases in the development of any web site, no matter its size, and you shouldn't skimp on any of them.

Explains Margie Matteson at Marisa Design, "Following the information gathering, where client input is critical, there is the design phase, followed by the development phase, with client approvals at every milestone. At some point, content must be written, either by the client or by a copy writer, and incorporated into the site. For complex sites with extra features, a specialized developer might be needed. Other sites will need the services of a search engine specialist or an internet marketing specialist." Sometimes you can get the skills at the level you need from a single provider, but experts in various areas can work together. Matteson is a member of the Women Designers Group; she says, "I network with over 200 other women who have widely ranging levels of expertise in these areas and more."

You should understand the distinction between the various pieces of a site. You don't have to be an expert on each of these, but it will help your blood pressure (not to mention the ability to get the site of your dreams) if you recognize the difference between the site content (that is, the words and images), the management of that content (the tools that manage how information is updated and added), the site infrastructure (which encompasses everything from the hardware and operating system of your server to the quality of its connection to the Internet) -- and so on.

Understanding the basic distinctions can help you get the right sort of help, later on. "Customers don't discern between the roles an ISP/webhost, designer, and webmaster provide," complains Karl Moeller, a network consultant in Tucson. "They glaze over when I try to explain, and subsequently inevitably confuse the respective duties... holding the webhost responsible for making changes to the site... grousing at the designer when the site is unavailable, etc."

Each of those components has its own requirements and limitations, some of which you won't necessarily be aware of -- but the web designer should. One example is accessibility: making the site readable by any user. Kyle Lamson, an Accessible Web Designer in Michigan, says, "Not everyone uses [Microsoft Internet Explorer], is 20 [years old] and has 20/20 vision. Visitors may be color blind, blind, dyslexic, epileptic, have cognitive problems, poor reading skills, poor concetration. They may use IE, Firefox, Opera, Kongueror, Safari... screen readers, text browsers, cell phones, webTV, PDAs or even portable game pads and, in the not so far future, their refrigerator to order food online. Accessibility should be a must." Some of these requirements and limitations are in the hands of the web developer; there's no certification for acceptability in standards, for example, so don't go demanding it.

Don't try to undercut the value of each part of the design process. "For some reason, many people have a hard time seeing the value of well-written content -- unless they come from a marketing background -- and it's often a hard sell," says Nancy Riccio, director of Plateau MediaWorks in Flagstaff, Arizona. "Unfortunately, even many high-end sites lose credibility because they're full of heinous grammatical errors and ineffective copy."

While a designer and copywriter may help you develop the site's content, ultimately your company is responsible for developing it. "I've had clients who assumed that creating their logo would be included with the web-dev part of the project," one person complains. "Web development is just that... unless specifically stated, it does not include a logo. Plus, if you expect me to find pictures, expect me to charge you for them, since I will likely be charged for them as well."

Defining who will create or supply which piece of content for the site is an important part of your negotiation process. Often, it's your company providing the words and images (who else has your logos? your approved marketing copy?), but clients sometimes expect the Web designer or developer to magically develop content for them, says one, "even though I tell them the next milestone in the project is for them to give me the text and images for the pages. I tell clients they know their company or organization, while I have only just met them, and have many other companies I deal with. So they must write and get photos (or pay me to take or buy them) and be involved in that process to make their web site their own."

As the client, don't let yourself get sidetracked by the tools. Let the professional use what he or she feels is appropriate. As Lamson points out, "Owning a copy of Dreamweaver and letting it write the code does not make a person a Web Designer. Dreamweaver does not guarantee a good site; it is just a tool and is as lousy as the person using it."

Dave Hecker is the Managing Director of Sagewing Corporation, a web development firm in Santa Monica, CA. He adds, "Clients think that their $250k investment in development tools will make things easier, but really it just makes their team work better. There isn't anything that can make software development easy, and for $250k what you really get is a way to avoid painful iterations, quality problems, or missed objectives."

Balance Glitz and Guts

One common issue -- particularly when it's the marketing department commisioning the Web site -- is the desire to design a site for visual appeal rather than usability.

Debbie Campbell, owner of Parallax Web Design LLC in Colorado, says, "Web sites don't need to be over-the-top to get results. Some clients will ask for lots of animation and cool graphics. They want a splash page built in Flash, and Javascript rollover images for menu items. They don't understand that (a) these things can turn off visitors who don't have a fast Internet connection or up-to-date browsers or extensions; (b) these things eat up bandwidth; (c) these things make a web site much less visible to search engines. In short, they rarely help, and often hurt, the majority of business web sites."

Successful sites balance the flashy stuff with useful, accessible content, optimized for the expected audience. Bill Austin, Chief Technology Officer at the Arizona High Tech Talent Partnership, explains at some length:

At the extreme ends of the web design continuum there are two kinds of web sites. Neither of them "work" in the way most companies want their web sites to work.

On one end is the highly graphical, flashy, content poor web site with dancing babies and moving pictures and unbelievable poor navigational design. On the other extreme is the site with no graphics, 50 words of black text per page on a white background, loads of content, and text link navigation.

The graphical site will sell products all day long -- if anyone gets to it. But no one will ever visit that site unless you send them there, one at a time, using other promotional mechanisms (such as TV, radio, print, direct mail, pens, cups, hats, blimps, billboards).

On the other hand, the simple text site will get hundreds, thousands, or millions of visitors who arrive there after searching for your product or service. Unfortunately, none of them will buy anything, contact you, or provide their contact information.

You have to shoot for a mix between the site which sells but gets no visitors, and the site which gets lots of visitors and does not compel action.

In general, though, you should not assume that your site will (or should) be heavy on graphical elements. As Lamson points out, Flash can easily make your site useless to large numbers of possible customers. "Use it smartly," he advises. "The 'look' is not as important on the web as in print. The web is about logic and structure. The structure should be defined by the content, not the look.... The 'look' is important but only to support the content... not to control the content."

If You Build It, They Won't Necessarily Come

Another common misconception is that, moments after you slap up a web site, millions of visitors will beat a path to your door. The reality is far different, say experienced developers, because building the site is not the same thing as marketing it.

Once the site is up, clients expect to receive "tons of business," says Robinson. "Only after informing them of marketing and search engine optimization services do they truly realize what goes into the web site."

The Internet is a two way media, points out Heilmann. "You simply cannot control anything that is on the other side of your information flow."

Etscorn-Dillon says, "You get clients that think that once their site is done, they'll be ranking #1 in Google instantly. It simply does not work that way. Also, putting up a site doesn't mean instant orders or phone calls. I have to stress that having a Web site is not a marketing plan, but one of the many pieces of a sound marketing plan. If they don't know where to find your site, they won't find you -- period."

Adds Cancilla: "Clients ... want to be #1 on Google for some term or another and don't understand a) that you can't guarantee such a thing, and b) that getting a high search-engine rank can take a lot of time and work. Perhaps more annoying still is the client who wants a high rank and thinks they know how to do it themselves -- by using some method they heard/read about that will either make the site annoying to readers or potentially get them banned from Google all together."

Instead, you'll need to spend some money and time. According to Joshua Strebel, president of obu Web Technologies Inc., "If someone has $30k to spend, they get a $10k web site from us, and then we look at putting that other $20k to use in marketing, either traditional channels or forms of Internet marketing. It is still all about location; you have to get people to see the web site. Yes, more established companies simply need a web site to support/enhance their current sales and marketing efforts, yet most new web sites need a significant amount of push before visitors will ever see it."

Campbell agrees that web sites aren't a magic bullet. "It's not 'if we build it, they will come, and throw money at us.' For most businesses, it's more like 'if we build it, and dedicate effort to keeping it fresh and up to date and interesting, and if we're selling something people really want to buy, and if we think of the web site as only a part of our marketing effort, and if we pay attention to having clean code and optimized pages and tweak our pay-per-click keywords effectively, maybe we'll be more successful with a web site than without.' My clients that assume full, enthusiastic ownership of their web sites, take advantage of their capabilities, and use them to really communicate and have a dialogue with their customers are the ones most pleased with the results."

Avoid Bit Decay: The Site Needs Maintenance

There are few things you can install in your business and then ignore completely. Unfortunately, that truism isn't grasped by a lot of business owners, who expect that once a Web site is "done," it can be ignored thereafter. Heilmann bemoans the misconception that a web product has a final date and then it's finished. "Any web site that is not developed to be maintained is already outdated," he cautions.

All web sites require at least some degree of maintenance, Campbell points out. "If a visitor comes to a site and sees a 2004 copyright at the bottom, or a class schedule that's six months outdated, that site and that company tends to lose credibility. If a site is never updated, spiders from search engines start visiting less and less often and rankings in search engine results pages will drop. I have clients whose sites launched last year, and they never touched them again. They're still wondering what went wrong, and why their web site didn't ever bring them any business."

Justin Crossman, at Fivetwenty Web Services, Inc. in Chandler, Arizona, suggests, "When making the decision to create or redesign your web site, think about how you would like to handle future changes, regular or otherwise, and make sure your provider is willing and able to meet those expectations."

Treat the Web Team as Professionals

Many web developers and designers are appalled at assumptions that their skills are commonplace and valueless. Niles says, "Professional design takes a lot of work, skill, education, and ability. We don't just input a set of criteria into the computer machine and pull out the results instantly. Do you think that a professional chef is a person who puts a bunch of ingredients that don't match into a big pan and sticks it in the oven?"

Keep in mind that the reason you brought in an expert was to rely on their advice. "Listen to me. You think data, I think usability. Things do not always work the way you think. The user does not think like you or me. Work with me for a compromise, not against me," adds Lamson.

Sullivan says, "My worst experiences have been when the client didn't trust me to handle all aspects of the job. Nightmares ensue. I'm a professional. I know my business. And if I don't personally do that part of the project, I know another professional to subcontract it to. Please don't go out looking for other people to 'help' and try to patch us all together, with you in charge. It does not work. Ever."

Pragmatically, you should expect to assign one person from your company to interact with the designers and developers. Shelly Cole of brassblogs.com advises that, if you have a committee deciding upon website issues, choose one person to interact with the designer. "Only one person. There is nothing that will cause more confusion, anger and disappointment than the fact that one designer has 3 or 4 people calling and e-mailing them every 5 minutes -- each person changing what the last person said."

Etscorn-Dillon wholeheartedly agrees, to the point of including the one-contact stipulation in her contracts. "My client is to appoint one person for me to work with, not a group. When you have a group involved, everyone is sending you their ideas and thoughts, nothing gets done, and it's very frustrating."

Another way to mess things up is to bring in an outsider who isn't a professional designer. That is, don't rely on your brother-in-law the self-proclaimed expert to give you conflicting advice about site development. Polzin says, "Many clients may know a friend, family member, associate or someone who 'knows the business.' This is quite frustrating from two aspects. One, they have a misconception that this is just a simple idea and that you just need to cut and paste a few graphics and text to make a web site. And two, they have been told that you can buy off the shelf solutions to implement their site, such as e-commerce, affiliate programs, and refer a friend programs."

Lamson suggests, "High school students with a cracked copy of Dreamweaver and PhotoShop cannot build web sites as good as real web designers, even if [the high school students] will do it for $250."

Another variation is business owners and IT staff who mutter, "I could probably just do this myself. Yes, says Etscorn-Dillon, "And I can probably fly a jet, fix my sink, and change my brakes. But why would I want to? I like to hire seasoned professionals to do what they excel in. I'm sure my clients could take over their site, but I can't imagine the learning curve they'd go through and the mistakes they'd make (just like I did) along the way. Is that the most productive solution for a business? If you want a professional look, hire a professional."

Your existing IT staff isn't the right "designer," either. Cancilla's primary pet peeve is clients -- particularly corporate clients -- "who don't understand that their company Webmaster or IT-support person probably isn't a Web designer or electronic communications specialist. I still see far too many Web sites designed by people who are great at server configuration but have no idea how to optimize HTML/CSS, or who can code beautifully but whose design or site-organization skills are lacking. And to make things worse, many of these people think they know more than enough to design or set content policies for a site."

Read the contract. There's a process, and you'll delay your own project if you keep making changes. Says Cole, "The client should read before they sign. I don't know how many clients I've had myself (not to mention other horror stories I've heard from colleagues) where the client just signed without really reading or asking questions. More often than not, it comes back to bite the client in the behind -- yet the client will threaten and get angry at the designer for something that, in all honesty, should have been asked about before the contract was signed, or the project began."

This is a surprisingly common problem. The contract is there to record what you and the site developer agreed upon, but too few people pay attention to the details -- and that costs money, time, and emotional wear-and-tear. Once a layout or mockup is approved, points out Etscorn-Dillon, her company starts to develop it into a real site. "I've had clients that approve the site and a few weeks later, want to make huge changes to the design. I have stipulated in my contracts that all design changes made after the design was improved will incur additional charges and hold up development time."

But you're already ahead of the game: after reading this article, you have a better understanding of what's expected. As Etscorn-Dillon says, "Educating your clients not only helps them to understand their online venture, but makes them more aware of the industry and therefore becoming involved. ... The more my clients are involved and educated, the better they do it seems. As the designer, it's satisfying when one of your clients gets it."

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Esther Schindler has been writing about technology professionally since 1992, and her byline has appeared in dozens of IT publications. She's optimized compilers, owned a computer store, taught corporate training classes, moderated online communities, run computer user groups, and, in her spare time, written a few books. You can reach her at esthers@digitalmediaonlineinc.com.