Architects and Web Designers

One day, a man went to an architect.  He asked the architect to design a building for him.  He wanted the building to have a fairly professional layout.  He wanted people to feel compelled to come inside upon seeing the building.  He asked the architect to make sure that people would not get lost in the building, and he wanted people to feel comfortable in the building.  The goal of the building was not just to have space inside it.  It would represent the business, it would sell the image of the business, it would make passersby want to come in, and it would make visitors want to buy the services and products offered by the business.  The architect sketched up some simple drawings, and the man was impressed.  He told the architect that was exactly what he was looking for, then he left to let the architect work on the official blue prints.

The next day, as the architect was working on the layout for the first floor of the building, he got a phone call.  It was his client.  The man explained that he wanted to make a few changes to the design sketched out the day before.  The architect did not mind too much, since most of the changes were on the second and third floors, and he had not gotten to them yet.  He told the man he would make the requested changes, and then he got back to work on the first floor.

A few days later, the client came in to take a look at the progress.  The architect was almost finished with the room layouts, and he was working on some of the structural details.  The client was impressed with drawings, but he wanted a few rooms moved around.  A bathroom was too close to a certain office for his liking, and he wanted the elevator moved to the other side of the hallway.  The architect started to object, but the man was adamant that the changes be made.  It took the architect the rest of the day to figure out how to move the elevator without causing structural problems, and moving the bathroom required adjustments to the plumbing that would ultimately be much more expensive than the original layout.  He did as the client wanted though, after all, the client way paying him for the work.

Early the next week, the architect met with the client again.  The designs were almost ready to turn into construction blue prints.  The client was quite pleased, but he told the architect that he thought something was missing.  He said the design did not quite "pop."  He got some copies of the design papers, and he asked the architect to hold off on the blue prints until he had time to look over the design papers.

The next day, the architect got a call from the client.  The client had shown the design papers to his mother.  She did not like certain parts of the layout on the second and third floors.  She also thought that the elevator and the stairwell should be moved.  The architect tried to explain that the requested changes were impossible.  The structural integrity of the building depended on supports being in specific places, and moving the stairwell and the elevator to the requested locations would interrupt essential supports.  Further, moving the bathroom on the second floor without moving the ones on the first and third floors would require a complete rerouting of the plumbing, which would take at least a day, and it would very likely cause chronic plumbing problems for the building.  The client politely explained that this was not his problem.  He had hired the architect to deal with these problems, and that is what he was paying him for.  He then said that he had an important meeting and hung up the phone.

The architect was left with a dilemma.  He could rework the designs to create the incredibly unsafe building the client was set on having.  He would get paid, and the client would be happy.  Of course, within a few weeks after construction, the building would collapse (assuming it did not collapse during construction), the client would be liable for millions of dollars in harm to employees and customers, not to mention the cost of cleanup, and the architect's reputation would be destroyed.  Alternatively, he could drop the client, risk not getting paid for the work already completed, and still get a reputation hit when the client complained about the situation to all of his acquaintances.  For what it is worth, at least he did not have to worry about the client making changes to his work without telling him (this does happen to web designers).


While I know of no client stupid enough to do this kind of thing with an architect, somehow many people think it is appropriate to do with web designers.  The main difference between a web designer and an architect is that the web designer often does the design and the construction, and the liability for a botched web page is much lower than for a collapsed building.  Aside from that, however, the jobs are very similar.  When a person hires an architect, it is because the architect is trained to understand the limitations and best practices of building design.  The architect knows where the best place to put bathrooms will be.  The architect knows how to position various rooms to minimize the costs of plumbing and wiring.  The architect knows how to work the design around essential structural supports.  Clients don't second guess architects, because the cost of a mistake could be enormous.

Web design is very similar.  A good web designer is trained to understand how to make a web site attractive and easy to use.  A good web designer knows what to avoid and what is likely to drive away customers.  A good web designer can design a web page that will represent your business the way you want people to see it.  Web design is not just about coding a web page.  It is about marketing the image that the client wants.  It is about making the business attractive and professional.  When a client interferes in this process, it wastes the client's money and the web designer's time, and it results in an inferior product.  A web designer should be treated like an architect.  A poorly designed web site can loose an enormous amount of business.  If a client is paying a web designer, the client should generally leave design decisions to the designer, unless asked.  And, the client's mother (or other friends or family members) is never an appropriate source of design advice (if you trust your mother's web design education that much, hire her to make the web site).


I want give some guidelines in dealing with a web designer.

First, ask for examples of the designer's work.  If there is something you don't like about the design, ask about it.  It may be specific to the situation, or perhaps it was a client decision.  If you don't like the designer's style, find another designer.

Second, don't go for the lowest bidder.  In the software industry in general, and especially in web design, you get what you pay for.  If you hire the lowest bidder, expect to get the lowest quality, and don't expect it to be finished on time.  It is better to interview several  web designers, discuss what you want, and look at examples of their work.  Once you have narrowed down the list, it might be appropriate to pick the one that charges the least, but never blindly pick the lowest bidder.

Third, trust the designer.  Seriously, you could easily hire a bunch of high school students, teach them HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and they could make a web site for you.  The result would be awful, it would drive away customers, and it would be a horrible waste of money, even at minimum wage.  Hire a web designer, and trust the designer to do the design.  If there is something that bothers you, feel free to discuss it, but sometimes the answer is just no.  You might not like it, but the site is for your customers, not you.  It does not matter how much the site "pops" for you; if it does not look professional to your customers, it is not worth it.

Fourth, never ever complain that it does not "pop."  Popping is not a thing.  Web sites do not and should not "pop."  What you think of as "popping" is probably one of those things that web designers learn in college to never do, because it makes things hard to read, unprofessional, and sometimes may even cause seizures (totally serious here).


I also want to briefly talk about why a professional site is important.  A while back, I saw a web site for a local student apartment complex.  It was clearly made by someone with little or no design education.  Following is the impression a poorly designed web site for an apartment complex has on me.

First, it is clear that the company either does not care about its image or is too cheap to pay for a decent product.  If it does not care about its image, then I can only assume that it also does not take very good care of its apartments.  I mean, if a company cannot be bothered to take the effort to hire someone to make a professional web site, what must I assume about how the insides and outsides of its apartments?  Likewise, if it is too cheap to pay for a decent web site, then I can only assume that it is paying the lowest possible price for things like maintenance.  How high does it wait for the snow to get in the winter before it is willing to pay someone to plow?  If I have a plumbing problem, are they going to get a professional plumber to fix it, or will the maintenance guy just do something that will make it good for a few days before it has problems again?  What about pest control when the ants start getting inside?

Second, it is obvious that the point of the web site is to get a marketing advantage, not to honestly represent the company's product.  A company that is not willing to put some effort into a professional web site is a red flag in my book.  A poorly designed web site says "I want the business, but I am not willing to work for it."  It tells me that the company wanted the exposure that comes with web presence, but it also tells me that they care more about their own pocketbooks than about their customers.  Admittedly, sometimes they just don't know better, but frankly, it is not worth the risk.

Third, and this applies specifically to apartments, the highest quality renters are the most likely to notice the above two.  In short, I would expect an apartment complex with a poorly designed web site to have lower quality renters, which means apartments are not going to be in very good condition, I can expect more noise than I would in other apartments, and I may have to deal with rude neighbors.


What it all comes down to is that no web site at all is better than a low quality one.  A low quality web site is likely to attract mostly low quality customers.  If you are fine with that, design your own, trample all over the web designer you hired, have your high school student with no design education do it, or get family members without any design education involved.  If you want to attract higher quality customers though, you will need a high quality web site, and that means hiring a good designer and getting out of the way.

If you treat your web designer like you would treat an architect designing an expensive building, you will almost always end up with a better product than if you start enforcing your own design choices.  If you are paying someone to design a web site for you, get out of the way, and let them do their job.