Gerry McGovern raises an important question over here on the Giraffe Forum: Can a Web site be both attractive and functional? The title of the post, “The best Web sites are ugly,” suggests the answer is no.

It all begs a discussion that’s been going on for years, and that’s worth having for anyone managing the development or redesign of a site.

Designers, of course, tend to favor aesthetics over usability. But there has to be a middle ground between Salvador Dali and Jakob Nielsen. The missing element? Usability testing. But that takes time, costs money and runs the risk of delivering results that are at odds with pretty design.

In many companies, the executives controlling the dollars that pay for the design or redesign don’t understand that ugly can be pretty. They’re comfortable with print, where pretty goes a lot farther because functionality doesn’t have to be considered, and apply those sensibilities to the Web. But online it’s functionality and utilitarianism, not pretty, that rule the day. Plus, there’s an element of human nature here: If I’m writing a six-figure check to have a site designed, I sure as hell want to think it looks good.

Meanwhile, there are the levels of approval that need to happen in most companies to launch a Web site. As the saying goes, “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” So it is with Web sites (or anything else of a creative nature, for that matter). The bane of copywriters forever has been that everyone knows how to write, so everyone thinks they write well, though so few do. The same thing is happening with Web sites: Everyone uses the Web, so everyone thinks they know what a great Web design needs to be. But the only everyone who counts is every one of your customers.

Designing or redesigning a Web site is a long gauntlet to run, and it’s getting longer all the time. Which probably explains McGovern’s observation that “Web design is falling into the trap of caring more about how a page looks than how it reads.”

But let’s go beyond how it reads: Let’s also focus on how it functions.

Takeaway for marketers: McGovern is absolutely correct when he writes, “there are three things a great Web design must be: useful, useful and useful.” Put aside your personal tastes and make sure it’s useful in the way your customers want it to be.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 6:06 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.