reflections

One of my greatest pleasures as a web designer is getting the chance to refine my craft but, in contrast to that, one of my greatest burdens is the the number of ridiculous questions that clients have presented me with in the past! Given how long the Internet has been around, and considering the sheer number of sites on the web, you would think that everybody would have at least a basic knowledge of how it all works - but you’d be wrong!

Clients can’t always be expected to understand the complex stuff though - that’s why they pay a designer. But sometimes it would be so much easier if they’d just get a grip!

You’ll need a large spoonful of patience if you’re not going to start alienating your own clients though, because you’re the one with the knowledge. Treat them gently, especially if it’s the first time that they’ve had a web site built! If you know what to expect though, then it should help you deal with the questions when they come!

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One of my ongoing projects at the moment is Britster - a social networking site that will offer many of the popular features from sites like MySpace, YouTube and Date.com. What will make this site different to the rest though, is that fact that it’s aimed squarely at the British - including UK residents, ex-pats, and anybody else who wants to communicate with those living in Britain. My role in the project has been varied to date, and has included PHP development, online and offline marketing, corporate styling, and (of course) the design of the main website.

As research for the website design element of the project, I’ve looked at all the major existing social networking sites in a critical light, to see where I could make my own designs better. What I found really surprised me though - a general lack of quality, poor navigation and huge file downloads are common among both the leaders in the field and those vying for success

Please remember that these evaluations are purely my own opinion as a web designer. Just because I think a site sucks visually, it doesn’t necessarily mean the functionality is also lacking, as that isn’t what I’ve focused on.

I hope that any designer (web or otherwise) will find this roundup useful, as it highlights the pitfalls a designer may come across when creating a design for mass consumption - something we all have to tackle at some point in our careers. This may also be of interest to anyone else developing a site with social networking features.

Notes: clicking on any of the thumbnails will open up a full-size grab of the site in either a new tab or window. These are stored on my Flickr account, and I’ve grouped them into a set which you can view in full if you want to make comparisons! With this being a rather lengthy post, I’ve made use of a ‘read more’ break in the text, so you may need to click the title to read this article in its entirety.

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