KillerSites Blog

The hierarchy of web design client concerns.

December 10, 2006

Ah, web designing nerds, you have studied hard, validated your pages and now you’re ready to leverage your skills for fame and fortune … ok, maybe for just a steady paycheck.

When it comes to the earning a living, what matters most, is what your potential clients are concerned about.

The musings of ivory tower nerds (who probably don’t get too many jobs) often times does not help to pay the bills!

… Code is not beautiful (a fat bank account is) and the Web standards means nothing to the people who put the food on your table.

(Now I’m in trouble!)

THE HIERARCHY OF CLIENT CONCERNS

When it comes to web design, I think the hierarchy of client concerns are:

  • Price – everyone wants to save a buck!
  • Design – a website has to look good. Remember the job is ‘web designer‘ and not ‘web coder’.
  • Usability – though clients have no idea what ‘usability’ is, they just want the site to navigate easily.
  • Google position. If you can make a site rank on Google quickly (even with obscure search terms,) you will be god.

Notice that Web standards and code that validates is not on the list.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com