Whose Website is it anyway?

Sometime back, I received an order from a client to develop his website. This client provides IT related services. When our design team met him to discuss his requirements in details, he said "I want my website to have links like that of 'A' company, design elements like those of 'B' company and the colors of 'C'."

It was no use trying to convince the client that his site had a different target audience and that such hodge-podge methods of developing a website would never work. As he was the owner of the site, we had to accede to his wishes. Of course, the result was a website that looked like it was developed by a 10 year old, not too bright one at that. After receiving negative feedback from other people, the client soon scrapped the design and asked us to develop a new website - this time, relying on the expertise of our artists. The client is still using this website and everyone who visits his site has given him a positive feedback about the website..

"Can you develop a site exactly like that of Xxxxx Company? We have liked it very much, and really do not mind if you copy it" asked a client. Well, we duly took at the website of xxxxx, and politely informed the client that the website they had liked (though good), was a products based website while their company was a services based company. However, the client had a fixed idea of what she wanted, and we ended up developing the website that was an exact replica of what she had liked.

The moot question is - why does someone make a website? On the face of it, this question seems redundant. Of course, the aim of a site should be to promote the services / products of that company. And the site should be developed as per the owner's wishes, right? Wrong! The most important thing to remember is that your site is NOT meant for you, it is meant for your clients / target audience. In other words, the site should be developed based on what your end clients will like, not on what your personal preferences are. This is the reason that you hire a professional website design company in the first place.

Of course, this article is not meant to disparage site owners who insist on implementing things exactly their way or to sing paeans about web designers; all it is meant to connote is that if the web designer suggests a design / approach which is not to their liking, the owner should be flexible to at least give a thought to the web designer's suggestions. After all, when you go to your doctor to get well, do you suggest remedies to the doctor yourself?