Autopsy of an Agency Website
Are you ready to take the agency website evaluation quiz? Be brave.
1. Does your site resize the browser window or pop-up a new window to control the size of the screen?
Your impulse to control page layout (or in this case my browser's size) is an intrusive and inconsiderate practice. Please stop.
2. Does your site use a splash page?
Sites with splash pages experience at least 25% site abandonment. This is a fact. No matter how creative, engaging, compelling, award-winning, or entertaining, splash pages turn away at least a quarter of all visitors. Most leave before the splash page ever finishes loading. Splash pages hurt performance.
3. Does your site use a Flash preloader? (If a visitor sees a "loading" bar before they can use the site, it does.)
Have you ever read a website RFP that didn't include a requirement for "fast loading?" Why do you think this requirement doesn't apply to agency sites? Preloading is necessary to pull off creative interactions, but this creativity is at the cost of visitor retention (not to mention search traffic).
4. Does your website place page copy into small scrolling boxes?
This is common practice for Flash sites, but some agencies like to do this on non-Flash sites too. It's usually the same page layout impulse mentioned above that causes designers to do this. They don't want all that pesky content mucking up their page design. This practice is less annoying than controlling browser size, but it's still poor form. And in some cases can hurt search engine optimization.
5. Is your website built entirely in Flash?
Flash is not a good platform for website development. There are four exceptions to this rule. If your name is Homestar Runner you can have a Flash website. If you're a website application (like Buzzword.com), Flash/Flex is great. If you're a movie trailer website, go nuts. And maybe, if you're an advertising agency that specializes in building movie trailer websites, then Flash is fine. Other than that, Flash is the wrong choice.
Agencies are addicted to Flash for two reasons. It allows them to build creatively-driven, conceptual websites. It's also a technology they can handle, in contrast to standard platforms like PHP, Ruby, or ASP. But it is a bad idea. It encourages all the wrong impulses. Agencies already have trouble reining in creativity on the web. Flash only magnifies the problem.
6. When your navigation is clicked do pages refresh immediately, or does a cool animated Flash transition occur first?
You already know that the law of website interface design requires navigation to be intuitive and fast. As a result, navigation needs to be obvious. Creativity and intuitiveness are often at odds. Obviousness is practically opposite of creativity. But anything that delays, makes people think, or gets in the way of website navigation is superfluous. Clicking to a new page is not an opportunity to entertain or impress with creative concepts. Yet agencies bog down their sites with unique interfaces and cool transitions instead of following common navigation practices and trends.
7. Is your latest news or announcement over six months old?
If your site's in Flash it probably is. It should take less than twenty minutes to write a news update and less than two minutes to update it to the site (by the same person who wrote it). If that's not the case, your site is not built on the right platform.
8. How often do you check your traffic stats and review things like referring search engine traffic?
If you're site's in Flash, the answer is probably "almost never" or "what search engine traffic?" Agency sites perform so abysmally bad in terms of site use and search engine optimization that you may as well not bother looking at your analytics. And if you aren't seeing positive results from your own site, you'll probably under-value web strategy for clients too.
Of course there is. At the very least, all the fundamentals of design are more than needed on the web. Fundamental design principles are critical--composition, layout, typography and color, with the added elements of interface and user experience design.
But what about conceptual design? This is where the danger resides. When it comes to conceptual design, it's better to err on the side of restraint. Any concepts that do not in any way break the rules of download, intuitiveness, navigation and content orientation are great. But all too often the creative idea does get in the way, and in these cases it has to go.
Of course, we also need to address agency positioning...
1. Does your site resize the browser window or pop-up a new window to control the size of the screen?
Your impulse to control page layout (or in this case my browser's size) is an intrusive and inconsiderate practice. Please stop.
2. Does your site use a splash page?
Sites with splash pages experience at least 25% site abandonment. This is a fact. No matter how creative, engaging, compelling, award-winning, or entertaining, splash pages turn away at least a quarter of all visitors. Most leave before the splash page ever finishes loading. Splash pages hurt performance.
3. Does your site use a Flash preloader? (If a visitor sees a "loading" bar before they can use the site, it does.)
Have you ever read a website RFP that didn't include a requirement for "fast loading?" Why do you think this requirement doesn't apply to agency sites? Preloading is necessary to pull off creative interactions, but this creativity is at the cost of visitor retention (not to mention search traffic).
4. Does your website place page copy into small scrolling boxes?
This is common practice for Flash sites, but some agencies like to do this on non-Flash sites too. It's usually the same page layout impulse mentioned above that causes designers to do this. They don't want all that pesky content mucking up their page design. This practice is less annoying than controlling browser size, but it's still poor form. And in some cases can hurt search engine optimization.
5. Is your website built entirely in Flash?
Flash is not a good platform for website development. There are four exceptions to this rule. If your name is Homestar Runner you can have a Flash website. If you're a website application (like Buzzword.com), Flash/Flex is great. If you're a movie trailer website, go nuts. And maybe, if you're an advertising agency that specializes in building movie trailer websites, then Flash is fine. Other than that, Flash is the wrong choice.
Agencies are addicted to Flash for two reasons. It allows them to build creatively-driven, conceptual websites. It's also a technology they can handle, in contrast to standard platforms like PHP, Ruby, or ASP. But it is a bad idea. It encourages all the wrong impulses. Agencies already have trouble reining in creativity on the web. Flash only magnifies the problem.
6. When your navigation is clicked do pages refresh immediately, or does a cool animated Flash transition occur first?
You already know that the law of website interface design requires navigation to be intuitive and fast. As a result, navigation needs to be obvious. Creativity and intuitiveness are often at odds. Obviousness is practically opposite of creativity. But anything that delays, makes people think, or gets in the way of website navigation is superfluous. Clicking to a new page is not an opportunity to entertain or impress with creative concepts. Yet agencies bog down their sites with unique interfaces and cool transitions instead of following common navigation practices and trends.
7. Is your latest news or announcement over six months old?
If your site's in Flash it probably is. It should take less than twenty minutes to write a news update and less than two minutes to update it to the site (by the same person who wrote it). If that's not the case, your site is not built on the right platform.
8. How often do you check your traffic stats and review things like referring search engine traffic?
If you're site's in Flash, the answer is probably "almost never" or "what search engine traffic?" Agency sites perform so abysmally bad in terms of site use and search engine optimization that you may as well not bother looking at your analytics. And if you aren't seeing positive results from your own site, you'll probably under-value web strategy for clients too.
Is there a place for creativity on the web?
Of course there is. At the very least, all the fundamentals of design are more than needed on the web. Fundamental design principles are critical--composition, layout, typography and color, with the added elements of interface and user experience design.
But what about conceptual design? This is where the danger resides. When it comes to conceptual design, it's better to err on the side of restraint. Any concepts that do not in any way break the rules of download, intuitiveness, navigation and content orientation are great. But all too often the creative idea does get in the way, and in these cases it has to go.
Web Smart Agency Consulting
is designed to help counter balance an agency's robust creative strengths. It can help explain, change, and instill a better web strategy culture across the whole firm, including resistant creatives. Once this fundamental and common barrier is overcome, the agency can devise an effective web strategy for their own site, which is the best place for them to start.Of course, we also need to address agency positioning...
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