I’ve decided to create multiple parts on my tips for creating a successful web application. This is the first part of the series: design. I think this part of the project is often overlooked and it is probably one of the most important parts of a project.
The design of the site is one part that is going to keep visitors coming back to the site. If the site isn’t visually pleasing to a viewer there’s a good chance he and/or she is not coming back.
So step number one is hire a graphic designer or a user interface designer to create something that will be visually appealing to the masses. If you are looking to cater to a particular market that’s great too, just make sure that it is visually appealing to your audience.
Now a lot of the time people will get a Graphic/Web Designer confused with a Web Developer. A Graphic Designer does the look and feel of the site and sometimes user interface, but even this is sometimes broken down into another person. A web developer programs the website, whether it be the front-end (xhtml/css/javascript) or back-end (server side scripting language/database). Some developers will argue that people that do XHTML/CSS aren’t developers but that’s another issue in itself. My opinion is they are as long as they aren’t using WYSIWYG tools to create the site.
The mistake that a lot of people make is they don’t hire the right person for the job. What they need is someone to create a clean design over their web application. That’s the job of the graphic designer to create a visually appealing look-and-feel for the site. Many times people will hire a programmer and expect them to do graphic design as well. While some people are talented enough to do this, and you’re lucky if you can find someone that wears many hats, most people are strong at a few areas of the business. Many times these areas are closely related to each other such as Object Oriented JavaScript and PHP for example. Now this might not always be the case so it’s just an example and take it as that.
When people try to budget for projects they try to cut corners on design. This is probably another reason why a programmer is hired to wear many hats. If the project is really important to you have a designer create a couple of templates and have the programmer integrate that into the system.
People are much more efficient in tasks that they are experienced and comfortable doing. It saves a lot of time and in the end saves you a lot of money.
Why is design so important? Well when it comes to the web people judge a book by its cover. They will arrive at the site give it a glance and could be gone the next second. A good design doesnt necessarily keep them there, but it could keep them there a little longer to get them to the next step.
The bottom line is design is very important for your web application. If you are looking for a graphic designer I work with quite a few and I can point you in the right direction. Some clients like me to do designs for them but as I stated above I’m one of those programmers who is much better at programming than graphic design. I hope this article helps and if you have any comments feel free to post them.
