Design Philosophy

How I view the design process

A Creative Process | Content is King | User Experience | Design Index

Reach your goals with a solidly-build website that lasts

Design is a Creative Process

Designing a site is a creative process that evolves into the finished product.

Together, we develop the overall plan for your website so that it best represents you, your business or organization and achieves your goals for the site as well as your future plans.

In this process we may try things that don't work or are impractical. That is part of learning what works for your site.

I worked closely with Russ Harvey over this past week to update the eight-year-old website he created, using new information and better images.

I appreciate how much he was able to teach me about security, web language, word maximization and website layout that works well for computer, tablet and phone.

I certainly recommend him for any website work.
— Myrtle Rae Forberg Siebert, Writer

Your online presence has to reflect what people are looking for in your market.

You need to be aware of any technical considerations affecting their ability to view your site's content.

Prepare for Tomorrow

Change is constant and the Web has the ability to change faster than most areas of our lives.

Plan for it as best you can. Scheduled site maintenance helps to avoid content stagnation.

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Content is King

The old adage, content is king is true.

Encourage access to information, rather than showcase wiz-bang effects (unless it is relevant to your business).

Useful to Your Audience

Make it easy to learn about you, your products and services.

You want to reach your target market with your message by providing the sort of engaging information your site visitors are looking for.

Useful content is determined the customer's perspective.

No one watches TV for the commercials. However, if the commercial is interesting enough, the viewer is captivated.

Google Penalizing Sites Lacking Quality Content

Google is moving to reduce the inclusion of sites with low-quality content.

Google says it will begin cracking down on AI-generated content created solely for the purpose of gaming its systems and ranking high in Google Search — a change that could potentially have a ripple effect on the quality of what we see online.
— Gizmodo

This update involves refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people. This could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries.

We believe these updates will reduce the amount of low-quality content on Search and send more traffic to helpful and high-quality sites.
— Google blog March 05, 2024

SEO consultant Jake Ward went viral on X/Twitter last November for bragging about how his company had used AI to steal 3.4 million in total traffic from a competitor. Ward explained that he had exported a competitor's sitemap and created 1,800 articles with AI based on its URLs. Ward's behavior elicited widespread disgust online, but unfortunately, it's just one example of how people use AI to game Google's search results.
— Gizmodo

Poor quality or SEO-focused websites is not a new problem (AI has added a new twist). You need to visit linked content on your site occasionally to determine if the link is still valid and still leads to relevant content.

Make it Inviting to Read

Choose your content carefully and lay it out so it is inviting to read.

The careful use of white space around content is a classic design concept.

Content should be accessible and load quickly. The site should look clean and professional and easy to navigate for everyone.

I was happily engaged with your simple, uncluttered webpage design. I hope others appreciate it, too.
Bob Sever

Most people use search engines to locate what they're looking for. There are methods that can provide organic search results without using tricky SEO.

Learning More

This site contains additional information about website design techniques and technologies. See the Website Design index for a listing.

Got Questions? Call Now!

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The User Experience

User experience (UX) is important to making your site attractive to visitors.

Ensure that the majority of the viewers see your site as it was intended using the popular web browsers.

Those using legacy browsers are seldom your target market.

No Precise Layouts

Precise layouts are impractical on the web but significant problems with major browsers will alienate site visitors.

The User Is Mobile

Increasingly people are using mobile devices (smart phones and tablets) when visiting sites, searching for answers and making online purchases.

Mobile users are more likely to phone than fill forms.

The Device Is Secondary

While ensuring a good experience on mobile devices you want an excellent site for everyone else.

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Web Design Index

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