I finish websites before they’re used when I work for clients …the content is in place, the graphic design is finished… the website is a “completed” project (there’s no such thing as a finished website, but that’s another topic). My own projects never seem to develop that way.
I rarely have the time to devote forty or fifty hours in one block to my own projects. I installed this blog in early December of 2007 and as yet I haven’t had time to do anything else with it. I haven’t been writing on it because the graphic design isn’t ready and the rest of elegantcoders.com isn’t finished or ready for the public either. I’ve had lots of ideas, thoughts, rambles and rants, but none of them have made an appearance here because I keep thinking I should get the blog and website in shape before posting.
I’m over that now, at least for the moment. I’m starting before I finish. I believe that open conversation and authentic communication is the most important thing about the internet, a key element of marketing, and an essential aspect of running a business. Color me Cluetrain Manifesto (hoping to review that book on the near side of soon). Well, this is real. I have a fully packed life and we’ve a lot of client projects in progress. Our own website, well, it needs some help at the moment. Kinda silly for web designers not to have a website. We’re aware of the element of the ridiculous in it and working on it. I’m doing my part by blabbing on without any kind of theme or template on this blog and only the most basic configuration settings in place.
I think many companies find themselves in this position…needing to add new content, but needing an architectural redesign of the site to support the new content which they aren’t developing because the site can’t support it yet. Although “under construction” is a horror that should be avoided on any website, I think it can work to launch segments of a site before they’re completely “ready” provided the implementation is consistent with the website development plan and sloppiness in coding and site configuration is avoided.
Clients are often most interested in how a site looks, rather than in how it works. That’s part of the reason there are so many websites that are hard to navigate and use, hell on people with disabilities or less than lightning fast reflexes, and invisible to search engines. I personally think about how a website will look last. The layout and look and feel is something I develop from the content, it’s shaped by how the site feels to me rather than the other way around.
I’ve decided to honor that process for myself and to quit waiting for the chance to completely develop our site before I do anything else. I’m going with content first and figuring out the fancy frills later.
