Web designers may face the greatest challenge when designing their own Web site. And some of these companies even decide that it makes more sense to have somebody else do it.
A few months ago Providence advertising agency and interactive media company Duffy & Shanley re-designed its Web site from a simple informational portfolio-style site to a controversially cutting edge forum that has spurred both harsh reactions and glowing praise.
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Jon Duffy, president of Duffy & Shanley, is aware of the negative responses.
“We have not designed a site to be appealing to everybody,” he said. “We have designed it to appeal to the people we want as clients or employees.”
John Martin is the vice president of marketing for Providence integrated technologies company BX.com, a company that is overhauling its site. Martin, who viewed the Duffy site with several BX.com Web site developers, said the contrast of comments within the staff was interesting.
“A half dozen BX.com Web site developers had strong reactions-pro and con,” he said. “One designer questioned the site’s darkness, saying all he saw was ‘remote images, and no sense of action.’ All agreed that the radical design will not work for everyone who visits the site.”
Martin said the re-design of the BX site has been a frustrating ordeal. He said the amount of pressure is higher than when designing an outside client’s site.
“It’s challenging,” he said, “because you really can’t avoid the feeling that this has to be the best Web site you will ever build.”
Context Media lets others handle most of that pressure. Communications Director Sara Garnsey said that although a significant portion of the company’s original site was developed in-house, the company turned to Boston-based Oxygen for the design and feel of the site. The coding was done by 1Globe of Providence.
Now, Garnsey said Context Media is about to undertake a significant overhaul of its site. She said the choice of the company that will do the redesign will be based on its experience, the kind of projects handled in the past, and the ability to translate Context Media’s vision into a reality.
“Our Web site is an enormous reflection of who we are,” she said, “and the firm we select has got to have an understanding not only of translating our brand online, but the technical aspects of making our site run well.”
The notion of identity was also a strong factor in Duffy & Shanley’s decision to reconstruct its site the way it did.
D&S interactive director Kira Greene said there were many options explored before arriving at the final product.
“We could have easily put something clean and nice up there,” she said, “but we really wanted to make people work.”
Martin believes making people work is something D&S is able to get away with.
“In D&S’s defense, you are warned, right there in black and white on the Web site’s ‘Mode’ page: ‘Thinking this way is not easy. Consequently, working with us is not easy.'” he noted. “The attitude boasts that D&S is so hot right now that it has the luxury of being selective, and will turn down work for clients who prefer to remain stodgy and predictable.”
Martin said BX.com would handle this message differently.
“The trouble is getting to that message,” he said. “We would find a way to convey it on the home page rather than force people to work so hard to find it.”
Greene said if someone goes to the D&S site and does not “get it,” D&S simply does not want them as clients.
