We see this a lot ... people dazzled by technological wizardry and 'cool' stuff, while losing site of why they have a website in the first place. As this post from Smashing Magazine directs, let your objectives guide you first and if wizardry is a means to drive those objectives, all the more better. What it leaves out? Test, track, analyze, and test again. Always.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES vs. USER EXPERIENCE
February 4, 20011
By Paul Boag

Here’s a question for you: would you agree that creating a great user experience should be the primary aim of any Web designer? I know what your answer is… and youʼre wrong!

Okay, I admit that not all of you would have answered yes, but most probably did. Somehow, the majority of Web designers have come to believe that creating a great user experience is an end in itself. I think we are deceiving ourselves and doing a disservice to our clients at the same time.

The truth is that business objectives should trump users’ needs every time. Generating a return on investment is more important for a website than keeping users happy. Sounds horrendous, doesn’t it? Before you flame me in the comments, hear me out.

The Harsh Reality

Letʼs begin with the harsh truth. If an organization does not believe that it will generate some form of a return on an investment (financial or otherwise), then it should not have a website. In other words, if the website doesn’t pay its way, then we have not done our jobs properly.

Despite what we might think, our primary aim is to fulfill the business objectives set out by our clients. Remember that creating a great user experience is a means to this end. We do not create great user experiences just to make users happy. We do so because we want them to look favorably on the website and take certain actions that will generate the returns that our clients want.

User Experience Is Important

Let me be clear. Iʼm not suggesting that user experience is unimportant. In fact, I believe that creating an amazing experience is the primary means of helping a website fulfill its business objectives. A well-designed website makes it easy for users to complete the calls to action we have created.

Happy users also provide many other benefits. They can become advocates for your website. A happy user is considerably more likely to recommend your services and is more patient when things occasionally go wrong. Enthusiastic users can also become valuable volunteers; they have innumerable ideas about how your website and products can be improved. They are far more valuable than any focus group!

The point, though, is that happy users generate a return on investment, so spending the time and effort to give them a great experience is worth it.

When Business Objectives and User Experience Clash

You may argue that this is all semantics and that business objectives and user experience actually go hand in hand. Generally, I agree, but there are occasions when the two clash, and at these times we need to be clear that generating a return on investment should trump user experience.

Let me give you an example. We Web designers often complain when clients ask us to add fields to their online forms because they want to collect certain demographic information about their users. We argue, rightly, that this annoys users and damages the user experience. But we need to ask ourselves whether those additional fields would make users not complete the forms at all—as we fear—or would just slightly irritate them. If users ultimately complete the form and the company is able to gather valuable demographic information, then the slight irritation may be worthwhile.

Do You Have The Right Balance?

Iʼm a little nervous about this post because I realize that many people could misinterpret what Iʼm saying. But I passionately believe that the Web design community is in danger of becoming blind to all else but user experience. Iʼm convinced we need to spend as much time and effort on understanding and achieving business objectives as we do on creating a great experience.

I’ll end with this: during your last project, how much time did you spend creating personas, testing usability and generally improving the user experience? How does that compare with the amount of time you spent learning about the client’s business objectives and creating great calls to action?

Ask yourself whether you got the balance right.

Great article from the beginning of the year from Mashable. To read the article with graphics and comments, click here.

4 PREDICTIONS FOR WEB DESIGN IN 2011
January 1, 2011
by Jacob Gube

Jacob Gube is the founder/chief editor of Six Revisions, a popular web development and design site, and the deputy editor of Design Instruct, a web magazine for designers. He has more than seven years of experience as a professional web developer and has written a book on JavaScript. Connect with him via Twitter.

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a web designer; but being a member of this fast-paced, persistently metamorphic profession, I’ll probably end up saying this at the end of every year until I retire.

1. Mobile Web Goes Mainstream

The mobile web has been the dominant subject in web design for the past 2+ years. A quick peek at Dribbble, a social media site where designers share their projects, will show you that many of us are working on mobile device apps and interfaces.

However, it’s still safe to say that most websites have given little to no attention to their mobile web presence. Most of the innovative mobile device web designs we’re seeing are on big, industry-leading, tech-centric sites such as Amazon.com, Google, and Digg, or niche sites targeted toward web designers (such as A List Apart).

Where we’re not seeing mobile web design implementations are in run-of-the-mill company and corporate sites. Small- and medium-sized businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and government websites are sadly falling behind instead of in line.

But with the web design industry abuzz with new specifications like HTML5 and CSS3, and cutting-edge frontiers like the mobile web, I can’t help but wonder what the future will look like in the new year. Here are four predictions for the future of web design.

However, companies are beginning to see the rewards of meeting the needs of mobile device users. In the years to come, there will be a significant shift in attention toward the mobile web presence in all websites.

There are already several mobile web tools you can use for creating a mobile web version of your site; it’s time companies seriously look into implementing these cost-effective and relatively simple solutions as either a stop-gap solution or a permanent one.

2. Web Design as a Profession Will Become Specialized

Web designers are increasingly contending with many roles and tasks. What used to be just HTML, CSS and designing static brochure sites for the desktop has extended to designing web-enabled solutions for mobile devices, web apps, rich Internet application (RIA) interfaces, content management systems (CMS) and much more.

We’re tasked with making harmonious designs that carry a website’s brand across all platforms and situations — designs that establish the company’s brand whether it’s being viewed in a 28-inch desktop monitor or an Android smartphone.

This leads to two things. Job security is one, but the other is the need to distribute these tasks so that we can specialize and excel in one specific area.

In the future, there will be greater stratification of the role of web designer. Right now, web app designers, mobile app designers and traditional website designers are clustered under the umbrella title of “web designer.”

Just as the profession of being a doctor and the field of medicine are branched out into sub-fields such as oncology, dentistry and neurology, we may see a similar division in the field of web design. I can see specializations such as mobile web designer, content management system designer (with further sub-specializations such as WordPress theme designer or Drupal theme designer), and RIA interface designer becoming a reality and being in demand as we move forward.

3. Simpler Aesthetics for Websites

There’s been a sweeping trend in the way new websites are being visually designed. Web designers are forgoing complex visuals and overdone design techniques, opting instead for clean and simple web designs with a high attention to detail, a greater emphasis on typography — with the help of web fonts and the upcoming open web font format (WOFF) specifications — and stronger interaction design for richer and more captivating user experiences.

Not only that, but simpler aesthetics means lighter web pages, which translates to a better experience on mobile devices where Internet connectivity is lower in speed and less reliable when compared to the traditional broadband connection, and where screen sizes are too small to fit excessive design elements. This web design trend of “less is more” seems like it will extend, if not dominate, the aesthetic tastes of web designers in the near future.

4. Web Design Will Replace Print Design (Even More)

Print designers are typically tasked with brand identity design, such as logo design, letterheads, business cards and other print materials.

However, companies are seeing the great opportunities and effectiveness of business networking online. Businesses are a lot more concerned about their brand’s visibility on the web. Business cards are being replaced by social networking profiles on Twitter and Facebook. Newsletters, brochures and company letterheads sent out by snail mail are being dismissed for HTML e-mails and e-newsletters.

We’ll be witnessing design budgets earmarked toward traditionally print-based branding materials shift toward web design solutions such as Twitter profile page designs, Facebook fan page designs and HTML e-mail and e-newsletter template designs.

If you've got something powerful to say, don't bury it. Maybe your big news isn't quite this big, but in the scheme of things, it just might be. Don't draw attention away from it.

Think something 'small' like typography doesn't matter? Then ask the fine people at Swedish furniture seller IKEA if they've received any feedback from their customers on their recent change from the highly stylistic Futura to the Microsoft-created Verdana font.

Why companies do something like this is a mystery, particularly when type plays such a huge role in the company's image (all-text logo, massive billboards, promo call-outs in catalogs, etc.). I'm sure the thought is that it may be an outrage at first, but eventually everyone will forget about it and move on. And honestly, they probably will, with a bit of exposure in the media because of it.

But in IKEA's case, it may really matter. A brand that's built on whimsical style and a half-serious treatment of itself begins to become mainstream when it uses mainstream typography. Have they become the new General Furniture Outlet? Will they can the blue stores and cram them into strip malls? Will I still be able to smell those Swedish sticky buns from a mile away?

Who knows, but the design community is right in their statement that the change to such a common font sends signals that the company is destined to ass ume a more common path, which runs counter to the reason people go there in the first place.

Don't get us wrong. We use Verdana ourselves for certain projects. It's not evil. But it doesn't work for IKEA . You can get a cheap lamp anywhere. But you can't get one with IKEA's panache. Take that away - one letter at a time - and you change the image of your company.

Our man Don Stoppenbach was responsible for bringing this to our attention. Charming, smart, fontastic.
Well done, Stopper.

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