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If I Purchase My Web Site, Will You Respect Me in the Morning?  

:: Saturday, January 22, 2005 ::

Web sites "out of the box" have their place I suppose. Same as one night stands, singing karaoke in front of your friends or walking your cute puppy in the park to pick up people of the opposite sex. It's a means to get attention.

For a little while at least.

Is it cost effective to buy a template and call it "my web site"? Is this the same thing as believing that all models in magazines really look like that in real life, when in fact, a gang of paid staff fussed over them for 3 hours and the lighting was just so?

Meaning, is it fair to buy a ready-made web site that makes it look like you spent gobs of money on it?

The infamous 10 page web site package, a thread at Cre8asiteForums, sparkles when someone asks if he should supply web site packages to his vendors. Which, of course, presents the business case for wanting to provide them for a class of customers who want a pre-designed web site.

Some comments from the thread...

"Infamous web packages are getting like those cheap pens you get imprinted with your company name and phone number."

"Most of my clients are in fairly intensely competitive industries, and so their sites must be built to compete. But if I got a call from the shoe repair shop down the street -- a business which thrives on being local -- I'd take another approach."

Have templates birthed what one person calls "'me too' McWebsites"? What gave web sites out of the box a bad reputation anyway? Is it the Tool or the User?

Maybe there's something to a design that's been proven to work?

One of my web site usability review clients was horrified to learn the web site she paid a web designer to build for her had failed to sell her products. It was invisible to search engines and conversions were just one big fat zero. So she asked me something I'd never been asked before. "Why did I pay all this money for a site that doesn't work, when it would have been cheaper to buy a pre-built one instead?"

While a cookie cutter web site may seem like a good idea, consider who it's for. (And the answer is not you, okay?) My friend Ben Hunt (aka "Scratch") of Web Design From Scratch fame found a fantastic paper on web site accessibility usage, rather than accessibility standards (which get technical and are often "left for later".) This piece, called Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers is jam packed with insights into how millions of web site visitors use your web sites.

Here's one of the lessons they learned in their study:

"Screen-reader users scan with their ears.

Most blind users are just as impatient as most sighted users. They want to get the information they need as quickly as possible. They do not listen to every word on the page – just as sighted users do not read every word. They "scan with their ears," listening to just enough to decide whether to listen further. Many set the voice to speak at an amazingly rapid rate"


In the end, it matters not whether you paid an experienced web design house to build your web site or paid the same price as a movie ticket for one of the pretty 10-page sets.

If neither web site can be used well by your target market - all of whom have a variety of needs - you're still batting zero. I'd put my money with skilled folks who understand usability, accessibility, search engines, user centered design and marketing. In either case, whether web designer driven or pick-a-template, know what you're paying for, and ask for proof that you'll get your money's worth.

Your reputation just might be on the line.

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 1/22/2005 07:08:40 PM

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