Sometimes I don’t know how we get there from here. There being that place where nondevelopers can build what they want on the web without having to hire expensive but too often incompetent web technologists. Here being the place where smart people spend time and money and brain cycles and still don’t achieve what they want on the web because they are not graphic designer, HTML junkie, Flash developer, user experience consultant, Ajax head, photographer, and writer all rolled into one. These days you need to be that if you’re going to create a fabulous web experience for your customers. That or you need to be a huge company with a fat wallet.
It shouldn’t be this way.
A gorgeous Denver day: autumn of my memories, instead of the nasty chill we had for too much of October. I chatted with my architect neighbor while we watched our kids play street hockey. He has a discriminating eye, a sense of design (obviously!). He’s the one I asked for advice when I was worried that the crabapple my landscapers planted was lopsided. I know he’ll tell me the truth. I know he’ll tell me that my tree should be replaced if it needs replacing. If he says it doesn’t need replacing, I trust him. He tells the truth but more important he can discriminate good from bad, tasteful from coarse, acceptable from unacceptable. Not everyone can.
All he wants is a website worthy of his firm, a website that meets his own standards, that truly reflects what he can do. It’s easy to envision, but hard to build and even harder to maintain. He mentioned Google Maps. Ajax, I told him, very cool. But wouldn’t Flash be better? That’s the first time I’ve recommended Flash. But imagine: you look at the plan of a house and mouse over a feature that interests you. Architect’s notes pop up, telling you how the kitchen window overlooks the backyard so you can see the kids playing. Or you drill into a video of the room itself. You click on the office and get an image of the built-in desk and bookcases. Then you watch a little video about how the home design or remodeling process works. How cool! But how does my neighbor build that or even get someone else to build it for him, for a reasonable price? And how does he update it and keep it fresh over time?
The firm he’s working with suggested that HTML pages would be easier to update than Flash. True. But Ajax pages aren’t going to be any easier to update than Flash.
I suggested that the best websites these days are updated constantly–search engines love that and customers like to see that your business is dynamic and current. But how does he, a smart guy but no Flash or Ajax expert, keep it updated? We’ve largely solved that problem for text-based sites with lightweight content management systems like WordPress. But it’s not solved for domains that need rich interaction, that need video and images and text all linked together to create a captivating experience.
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The number of possible ways video, text, and images can be combined into a captivating experience are innumerable. We have barely started to scratch the surface of UIs that allow mere mortals to combine these (and music or other sound) to create a 30-second spot, which is a very constraining format. There will never be a general-purpose solution for creating highly-interactive sites. At best, some constrained genres and formats can be tackled (for example, real-estate sites that provide 3D walkthroughs, or family history sites, or… well you get the idea).
Think about the interactive website’s older sibling: The multimedia CD-ROM. Where are the general-purpose easy-to-use tools for making these? All the ones I’m familiar with are either not general-purpose, or are not easy to use.
It is fairly straightforward to create a lightweight content management system with a surprising amount of flexibility and power that deals primarily with a single media (not necessarily easy, but at least straightforward. The devil is always in the details), but as soon as you try creating a general-purpose tool that manages several media equally well, the combinatorial explosion of complexity kills you. At best, you get a well-designed power-tool like Photoshop, which will never appeal to the casual user.
If he’s got the wherewithal, a custom CMS tuned to his needs is probably his best bet for maintaining the kind of site you’re talking about. It needn’t be built from scratch, either, as there are plenty of good, freely-available foundations to build upon.
“There will never be a general-purpose solution for creating highly-interactive sites.” While I’ll admit that we’re a long ways from something like that, I still hold out hope that we’ll some day get to the point that design-savvy non-designer non-developers can build what they want on the web. We’re at the point where people who aren’t graphic designers can put together really nice print materials like newsletters or brochures using e.g. MS Word.
Yes, it’s a lot more approachable for single media projects. Maybe I’m hoping against reality. I’d just love to see more power get into the hands of each person with a small business. By more power, I’m not thinking of an explosion of features but maybe smarter tools that guide them and make them smarter than they could be without those tools.
I’d suggest that the reason there aren’t more tools for making multimedia CD-roms is because most people don’t want or need to make their own multimedia CDs. But lots of people need to make snazzy websites.
Aside from the issue of putting do-it-yourself power in the hands of non-designer non-developers, there’s also the issue that hiring someone to do such a project is no guarantee you’ll be able to get what you want either. I’ve talked to two people in the past week who are working with professional web designer/developer shops and are having a terrible time achieving what they want. I’m sure there are all sorts of reasons and constraints and influences on that side of things.
My own experience building websites with WP makes me think that there’s a lot more to be done in easing and encouraging the development of interactive websites, whether the people making them are trained web developers or just savvy business owners.
Stop. Underneath this post is the assumption that given more powerful tools, anyone, regardless of training or aptitude, could make a great web site. That’s not true. That’s like saying with more powerful tools I could design a building, despite the fact that I have no architectural training, or that given typewriters, monkeys could write a novel. It’s simply not true.
In regards to working with “professionals”, you’re right, there is no guarantee you’ll get what you want, but when is there ever any guarantee of that in anything? Frankly, it sounds like your friends hired the wrong designers. Anne, you can slice the design world in two, one side comprised of firms that use design as a solution to their client’s problems and the other being firms that use their client’s problems as a way to further their own needs. It may be that your friend’s design firm falls into the latter category, and their need is to build some AJAX for their new business portfolio because AJAX is HOT!!!
Well then, how do you tell if a design firm is the kind that will use design as a solution to your problems and not their own?
First, look at their work to gauge their overall competence, but then, and this is the nugget, listen to the questions they ask and note how well they listen to your answers. Great designers are great listeners with an ungodly ability to synthesize. If your designer can’t sum up your needs and create a short, compelling vision that both makes sense and gets you excited, move on. Further, if your designer doesn’t detail that vision and create a written brief that sets the goals and parameters of your project in stone, move on. Assuming that your designer has done these things and you’ve chosen to work with them, use this written statement as the basis for judging the work they create for you. It is thus your responsibility as the client to make sure that this written statement accurately conveys your wants and needs BEFORE any work begins. If the work doesn’t measure up to this agreed-upon creative statement, you then have every right to ask that the work be redone. On the other hand, if you change the parameters and goals midstream, the designer has the right to ask for more time and more money.
That’s how you get good design, not by giving more powerful tools to the untrained, but by hiring the right professional and then the two of you working toward a set of written goals.
Chas., I agree with you mostly–the vast majority of people aren’t prepared to create anything beautiful or captivating online, no matter how many features and tools you give them. Still, I think there’s lots of room for improvement, not just for tools that non-designers/non-developers can use but also ones that better support professional designers and developers.
I could imagine incorporating an expert system into a website builder that would guide the user towards a site that was attractive and compelling, offering professionally-built templates with customization options designed in, and making it easier to glue together different capabilities.
Right now, someone’s best hope is to find a good web designer (or developer, if you need a super-interactive site) but I envision a future where people have much more ability to build things themselves.
As for the Ajax is hot bit–I wondered about that myself, wondered why they were proposing Ajax over Flash and then offering that “HTML would be easier to maintain.” Ajax is not going to be easy to maintain and update!
Hey, maybe you could design a building given powerful enough tools. If it had an architect expert system built in, why not? Monkeys writing novels, don’t know about that though.
Thanks for the comment, lots of good stuff to think about.
Having worked in a webshop for years, I feel really sorry for small businesses like your friend’s. A good design shop is usually too expensive for a small business website because their overheads are so huge and as such, so are their hourly rates. But many of the cheaper shops aren’t capable of delivering the kind of quality that your friend needs.
And there’s no incentive for designers/developers to create the tools that you describe. They’d be doing themselves out of their bread and butter.
Reading Chas’s comment on not giving tools to people who won’t be able to use them well reminded me of the MySpace design discussion that’s been going on for as long as MySpace has been around.
People might not use these tools to create what we call ‘beautiful’ sites today, but they’ll use them to create possibly a whole new aesthetic and maybe to communicate their work and their company in a way that a design firm would never be able to. (Probably not as pretty tho, is true).
I think you’ve identified an interesting gap in the market, and a tricky gap to fill.
If I was your architect friend I’d keep asking around until I found a really smart friend of a friend who’s freelancing and willing to take on the project. I wouldn’t pay the prices of a large webshop for a small business, and I wouldn’t want a ‘cheap’ website.
One of the constraints my friend has is that he did a trade with a web design/development company, so he’s somewhat invested in using that firm. I don’t know anything about their capabilities, but I doubt he would have agreed to it if they didn’t have some examples of good work that met at least his visual design standards.
I’m fascinated with the do-it-yourself space as a whole. There’s so much room to support people better.
Oops. Forgot to check back.
“I still hold out hope that we
Good points all, Michael. You are immersed in this, while I’m just cheering (jeering?) from the sidelines. What content management systems do you like? I’m assuming you use Zope?
When I’m not building an application from scratch (in Zope), I tend to use Plone (which is built on Zope) as a starting point for CMS-like systems.