Earlier in the month, I read a blog post by User Experience guru Paul Seys. His post, titled ‘The devil is in the detail‘, talks about how a simple question during a web development meeting led to a client company having to make a fundamental decision about themselves.
I won’t go into too much detail, as you can find out more by reading the post yourself – however I feel that Mr Seys has landed on a very interesting point.
When designing a website for a company or individual person, I often find that some clients will have to seriously consider the underlying principals of what they are trying to achieve. To me this not only emphasises the significance of a creating a public website, but also demonstrates that a website can unify and consolidate the purpose and goals of a client.
Nowadays websites serve as so much more than just a way of marketing; they offer potential clients and customers the opportunity to understand exactly what a company stands for and get a feel for who they might be dealing with.
It is my personal opinion that creating a website offers a hidden level of value to any company. Of course there are the obvious advantages of being able to reach a large amounts of people, the ability to market various services and products, and even having a public place where a company or individual can present their agendas – however I think the most valuable advantage of creating a website, is that the thought processes involved in the creation, often helps to identify a clearly defined experience strategy for the client.
Having identified these principals during the web creation process, it is common for even large companies to realise that they have made fundamental decision about themselves that, surprisingly, they hadn’t openly discussed or defined before.