Web Design; Get out your Scissors!

Sometimes, the best way to fix your web site is to get out the scissors. Print out your front page, and cut up the parts of it. Pull out the rubber cement from the back of your drawer, and pretend you're creating a picture puzzle. Is there a better place for your links? Is your phone number above the fold? Remember to put usability over flashy graphics, and wasted space.

This morning, my client and I worked together re-designing her clinic's home page. With the original web designer on the phone, we cut up the page, and penciled in some new ideas. By moving the pieces of our page around on paper, we were able to arrange things very nicely. I think it took us about 25 minutes.

Our "scissor session" wasn't welcomed very warmly by our webmaster. We heard some growls, a few harrumph sounds, and several big, exasperated sighs. It's a nearly $4,000 web site, and it needs to integrate with the client's established Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some of the changes are just standard design issues. We'd like to unify all the different fonts, down to one font in only two colors, move the menu bar, and be sure to have some current, written content on the home page.

My client quickly understood their web site with the help of our old friends; scissors, a pencil, and rubber cement. We gave the page better organization, and a faster loading time, just by using scissors to see what's possible. I think it will score higher in search engines, and with our readers, too.

As a social media manager, I know my expertise overlaps most webmasters. Many websites have been slow to flexibly integrate Facebook and Twitter with regular web traffic. His reticence to re-work several pages wasn't unusual. Webmasters may be "stuck" in design templates they've used in the past, and be wary of the rapid changes presented by social media.

Well, change is here. Your customers should be able to find your domain, and interact with you easily. That's what social media will help you accomplish. Instead of pages presenting fancy code, we need to offer a good, old fashioned handshake, via Twitter and Facebook updates. If your webmaster is more of a coder than a design and content source, this may be tough for them. Today, you may find it's time to cut ties, and trace a new pattern for your business to succeed.

Probably won't cost you $4,000, either.