I was talking with Laura the other day about dynamic websites. Ever the aesthete with an eye for color and focal points, she said, "Aren't those sites really just a bunch of words?"
She's right to a degree. I have seen alot of dynamic website pages that don't have a boss. In other words, nothing draws your attention. There is no focal point. They are content heavy, pulling data from databases, and pouring it onto the page ad infinitum. Blog sites can be a little that way, lots of reading, lots of links, low on visuals, right? The problem is nothing is the boss, there's no focal point, nothing to draw attention. And here's the bigger question. Who has time to read all that anyway?
When it comes to navigating a website or a blog, I'd much rather see my way through with images and graphics, than read my way through with content alone. Is anyone with me?
Great content is wonderful, but content alone does not a great website make. I like the trends we see in website design, fresh colors, lots of white space, large fonts, etc. For examples, visit http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm, a site dedicated to the basics of great web design using css, hand coding, standards, etc.
I'm putting the finishing touches on my eBook, The Insider's Guide to Web Marketing, and in the process, I've been looking for landing pages with examples of great web design. I started with award winning sites but found quickly this is the wrong track to pursue. Apparently, anyone can start and awards program and give away awards, and many of the award winning sites I found were, well shall we say, less than noteworthy.
Not all award giving sites are created equal, however, a few notables (in my humble opinion) are webbyawards.com or ultrawebaward.com . These sites featured several sophisticated flash sites. To be honest, I prefer the clever, visually catchy and functional website samples featured on cssbeauty.com or stylegala.com.
So my point, and I do have one, is a hard-working content rich site can also look good with the use of carefully planned and consistent graphics. Content is great (especially for search engines), but something has to be the boss. Let your graphics be the visual leader and your content will follow.
What do you think?
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