I design and maintain web sites for a living, and the one thing that I see most often is too much of a focus on the graphic design of a site, or the “look and feel” and not enough on the idea of interaction with the site.

Design on the web is a very different beast from designing a print brochure, or a newsletter, or a trade show booth. I’ve spent my career doing all of these, and would like to share a bit of my insight into an effective approach to successful website planning and implementation.

Above all, you have to realize that websites are resources to be used. Unlike a magazine or a brochure, they have a bit more of a complex role when it comes to interacting with their audience – and more appropriately, vice versa. This doesn’t make them any easier or harder to implement, but web interface and interaction does bring a unique set of challenges and considerations to the table.

Anybody who thinks they can separate design from structure from content, has not spent enough time working with good teams to develop an appreciation of the importance of all three.

Structure is King

Yes, yes, I know that’s not how it goes. Everybody keeps saying that content is king, and I’ll agree with you in the next section, but for now, just bear with me. Structure determines how the entire site will work. Think of wanting to build your office. Yes, you have to know who’s working there, but much of your planning involves figuring out the space you need, and getting the doors right, and hiring the right architects and structural engineers before going to Ikea to buy all of your furniture. Yes, you need to know the basics of your intended content, but at this point, it’s at a very high level. Don’t get carried away with too much content development without determining a strategy to deliver and navigate it.

When it comes to websites, structure is something that every designer needs to think about before choosing a typeface or a colour scheme. The planning in these stages shapes how your content is presented and accessed, but in some cases, may actually influence appropriate content choices. Decisions about navigation shouldn’t be left to the end of the planning process, for your designer to deal with as an afterthought. Content is what you want on your site, but it’s extremely important that you make a commitment to a method of organizing it.

Use your target audience to guide you. No marketing decisions should be made without appropriate research, so make sure you’ve got as much information as you can before you start deciding on technologies and colours and neat Flash splash pages. Let that research take you to competitors, and put yourself in the shoes of a customer. What makes things easy for you? What frustrates you? What are you doing just before deciding to buy, or deciding to leave?

Content is King

Okay, that’s more like it, you say. The medium is the message? Not if you want that Google PageRank (sorry, Mr. McLuhan, I’ll make it up to you in another article). The medium only gets you so far, but the swing for the internet is back to purity of content. People are becoming a lot more flexible in the way that they access content, and to some extent, it’s created a platform war — from huge desktop screens to tiny Blackberries, iPhones, and UMPCs. Fortunately, we’ve got the standards and tools that are up to the challenge. A good separation of content and presentation is all that’s needed. Make sure your users can change the medium, and still keep the message intact.

Search engines play the part of a user as well. Make sure they have information to digest. Google in particular is almost entirely geared towards finding and ranking relevance of information. Their entire credibility relies on making sure they have information on sites that let them return pertinent search results. Their ad systems also work this way. All other successful search engines follow a similar path. If they don’t know what your site is about, they can’t send interested people there. Content should be written in such a way as to not only inform a human reader, but to make sense to a artificial intelligence, as well.

Design is King

Oh, come on. We all know that form follows function. A good and successful design needs to be more than just pretty, however. This is where your users get the opportunity to interact with that properly organized content. The site should be clear to them, and often what looks good is not necessarily what makes for good design on the internet. Make no mistake, the demographic is very different from a magazine or newspaper reader. The time to grab someone’s attention is very short and there are always millions of competing sites at their fingertips, seconds away.

Some things in design don’t change, however. The basic principal of design is that you’re communicating effectively. That’s your job. You can be more successful if you’re creative, but don’t let the quest for aesthetic appeal overshadow the job that a designer has to keep in the fore — effective communication of ideas and content. To that end, use good design principles when thinking of your typography, page flow, and whitespace. Add to that a clear and consistent method for navigating from area to area without surprising, confusing, or insulting the user, and you’ve got the makings of a good website.

User experience is King

A site needs to look well-organized, not too boring, but not too confusing. The design is there to help guide the user, and to help them find what they want. You can’t force a path on them, unless they cooperate. Remember, just because there’s only one path to follow on your site doesn’t mean they won’t just go away to a site with more choice.

Don’t ever think of your website as finished. You have to set objectives — milestones, as it were, but don’t ever think of a site as, “in the can,” throw-it-on-the-shelf-and-let-the-hits-come finished. This is where real website development sometimes starts. Sometimes it’s a bit painful to take a look at all your hard work and decide that you’ve made some mistakes – but it’s harder still to leave things to atrophy. Business models and advertising strategies change with their respective trends, and so should websites. Listen to your visitors. Find out why visitors are coming, and why they are coming back. Use the information to constantly tweak (not redesign!) the experience for the better. Don’t fall into the trap of changing things just for the sake of change, however. Inconsistencies in usability and design risk alienation, if there’s not a good reason for them.

Users are getting more savvy and have their own ways of doing things — make it easy for them to still access your content, without forcing them away from their preferred access method. Don’t re-invent the wheel, or solve problems that don’t exist.

At the end of the day, you’ll learn best from the people on the other side of the screen. Those people are your readers and customers, and they’ll be your best resource, through emails, forums, letters, purchases, visits, and comments. At the end of the day, treat your users like royalty.

If you haven’t already, you should download Firefox 3. It’s a great browser, and Firefox has long been the darling of the Open Source community. I’ll have an article detailing exactly why, but this is just a quick report on the great evening I had.

I was at the launch of Firefox 3 last night, and was pleasantly surprised at the number of people there at 6pm. A couple of hours later, with the beer and cheer freely flowing, the numbers of partiers was over a hundred, and the downloads were in the millions.

I had no idea that Mozilla (the team behind Firefox) had offices here, nice open-concept ones at that. There was beer and food and screens showing the thousands of downloads they were getting every minute – it was really a good time. A few people have asked me, “Why all the excitement for a browser” and my answer has nothing to do with the browser — it’s all about the people involved. People that make free software (that’s free as in speech, not beer) are committed on a level that makes them interesting and generous and passionate. That sort of dedication is infectious, and makes for a good community.

Just like any other launch party, there was lots of swag to be had, people were milling about and talking about almost everything under the sun. There may have been a few more topics that leaned towards the geeky – but I’m sure you can go somewhere else if you want to talk about Paris Hilton.

MGImedia was there with the cameras, it seems, and although I didn’t see them, Space network was supposed to be there later in the evening. All in all, the launch kicked off with a good bit of coverage, and my good friend Ian also has a bit to say about the party.

I ended up leaving with their washroom key, and for that, I’m very sorry. I did lock myself into the lobby for a bit, and ran into some other people that were also locked out… with the only other key. Eventually, we managed to get the key back to the waiting, eager group.

Good work, guys, it was a great time! Check out some extra pics that didn’t make it here.

Let’s face it, we’re all geeks when it comes to something. Almost obsessive, willing to stay up late to figure out why something works (or doesn’t), we’re the ones who have a passion for something – anything. We’re the ones who ask questions, are eager and passionate to learn and broaden our horizons.

There are lots of beginner how-to sites out there on any number of subjects. But you can follow step-by-step instructions on your own.

So what is GeeksInTraining.com?

Beyond the basics we sometimes find ourselves mired in a bit of information overload. Answers to questions are often confusing without a frame of reference.

Geeks in Training will try to provide, above all else, context.

Context

Think about how important that is in our technical and technology-based society, but how rarely it’s stressed. Not only how you can do something, but why you should even consider doing it. Or when or where it’s feasible to do.

Beyond that, Geeks in Training will strive to give perspective. This is in part going to be offered by the articles you see here — a lot of them will be catalysts for further research and debate.

This is, of course, the other way of offering perspective — your own point of view, and those of your fellow readers. The contributions of the writers and readership is what will shape this site, and with your feedback and discussion, it can continually improve and grow.

About format and updates

I hope to find you coming back, as content will be updated on a regular basis. You can get updates by our lovely email newsletter, if you like. You’ll find the link to subscribe shortly — there’s still a lot to do.

Geeks in Training is not a blog, although it may look very much like it. Each of the articles on here will be thought out, researched, and edited — often with many editorial revisions. They may read as news, reviews, guides, or editorials, penned by a variety of authors. There are plenty of sites that cater to bleeding-edge tech news as it happens. This is not one of those sites.

Articles will come when they are ready, but at this time, we’ll be aiming to get about two per month. Keep in mind that all of the articles should be stepping stones for greater exploration and discussion.

We’ll be moderating where there’s need, but I’m hoping the discussions police themselves — in the future. Like most forums out there, keep things civil, help where you can, and we’ll all get out our inner geek.

Best regards,

Michael Zimmermann
(Geek in Training)