[webproducers] Re: cost to create a website?

--- morry <morry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> You make excellent points. 

thanks.

I do agree also that design is
> subjective but
> that's why good design is about developing a solution based on
> the goals.
> There are notorious stories of design teams being asked why
> this color or
> that placement and they respond saying things like "well I
> liked blue" or
> "it didn't fit anywhere else". These are subjective statements
> and most
> professional designers would cringe if they heard that.  Good
> design is
> rhetoric and if you choose green you better have a darn good
> reason for it
> and it should be part of the overall solution based on the
> project goals.
> When you use a professional design process where the solution
> directly
> addresses the goals and the design challenge or problem you
> are much more
> likely to launch a successful project and be able to give a
> solid rational
> to your client of why you chose a specific color or placement.
> This also
> works the other way around too. When a client suggests you
> make it the
> interface blue because that's his favorite color but you know
> that blue is a
> calming and cool color and will defeat the goal of a high
> energy site (ok
> maybe this isn't the best example) you can easily explain why
> you chose red
> or yellow as the accent colors and actually get his buy-in if
> he is
> reasonable.
> 

I agree with this BUT when you're dealing with design
implementation for any project you always have to remember the
draw the line between what's proper procedure/process and the
real world (e.g. corporate image and politics) that can "color"
(no pun intended) web site design decisions.

The artist may very well have good reasons for selecting a given
color palette for the project based on the creative spec and/or
corporate standards or even on proven color design principles.
However, it's been my opinion that personal preferences will
always drive or at least strong influence the process. For ex:
"The header must be blue or I like green on the home page."

*Sometimes* these personal preferences can have positive end
results but more often than not, their impact can be disasterous
to the site's aesthetics or even the project schedule by
knocking the project off track. 

As a PM, you have to be very wary of this and adjust for it in
your schedule and budget accordingly. For ex: I once worked on a
corporate project where the client had us spend more than a
month tendering designs with different background graphic
treatments, shades of green (their corporate color) and battling
the organization's "logo police" regarding the size and
treatment of their corporate logo. Although the issues were
relatively minor from a creative standpoint they had significant
impact on the rest of the project.

A similar thing happened for my employer's web site redesign. I
knew from experience that if certain parties got involved in the
creative process that I'd potentially lose 1-2 months off my
intended implementation schedule due to subjective issues and
plain meddling of the Scooby Doo kind. Unfortunately, internal
organizational politics being what they are, I was unable to
prevent this and as predicted, lost a good chunk of time getting
the creative issues sorted out...


> 
> 
> 
>  design is entirely subjective.
> 
> i'd like to stress the latter point - nearly 3 months after
> engaging a freelancer to create designs, it's still only 75%
> there since my superiors with the organization have been very
> picky/resistant to the new look being established. *sigh*
> 


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