Why does it seem like design doesn’t matter?
I’ve had enough. Outside of the design community (and sadly even within it), design just doesn’t matter (enough) to the masses. Unfortunately, there are a ton of sites with great content and lots of traffic, but design does and will always take a back seat to ROI.
I’ll admit, I’m a stickler for great web design. Okay, I’m a total snob, big whoop. When browsing a site I frequently check the code as well as the CSS to see how well the sites built, how it’s built, how they use type faces, and if I’d do anything different with it. I know it’s rare for people online to do this, probably only .5% to 1% do this sort of thing, and they are obviously invested in the web somehow (i.e. design, development, seo, social media whatnot, etc.), but good design is really, really important to me.
Note: for web design, I’m grouping everything together: the design (layout, type faces used, attention to detail, subtlety, etc.), how it looks in various browsers, how well the site is built, whether the site owner(s) are active socially (blog, twitter, etc.).
However, most people don’t care about any of this, or are even conscious about this. With good design, this is how it is supposed to be: there, but you don’t really notice it. But with web activity, I wonder if people are just accustomed to a general lack of design, or less importance on design, i.e. most people just don’t give a shit.
I for one, do give a shit. Sure content is very important, but where does good design fit into the equation? For my part, I read a lot of blogs that have poor, poor designs and almost illegible typography. Thank god for readability, or I’d never be able to read online. Then there are all the awful B2B sites I come across. It’s amazing that people think that good enough is just that, good enough. Pay a designer a bit to make your content readable, and I’d guarantee you can see some ROI from that.
The future of the web is being relevant and there for your customer. If I’m your customer and I get to your site because it looks relevant, I won’t be giving any business to you if you can’t at least make your content readable.
