Web Design and Human Attraction

It’s All About The Details!

I am sure you have heard this expression countless times before. It applies to everything from schooling to sports. Once you get the “general” concepts down, you must master the finer details if you wish to produce something worthy of remark. When you look at a website, you are instantly hit with an automatic neurological process. This complex process can be simplified to what I like to call, “sizing something up.” Very quickly, we all look at a website and determine if it “looks and feels” right. Since we also do this with everything from books to the guy or girl walking past you in Starbucks, you and I are better off learning from this truth than fighting it.

We fight our impulse to instantly size things up with rational and insightful statements like, “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” While this statement holds many moral truths, we are going to ignore all of them. For the purposes of this blog post and reality, we are going to accept that we all judge “books” by their cover. Instead of debating, we are going to focus on how we can manipulate this simple truth to our advantage in the wonderful world of website design.
For fun, we are now going to look at web design through the lens of human attraction. Like with people, you have three different types of websites.

1. First up, are websites that look amazing but are unreliable when it comes to functionality. In the real world, these people end up being “one night stands.” Like with one-night-stands, you are probably not coming back.
2. Websites that function really well, but give no concern to their appearance. A good analogy for this type of person is anyone who is unattractive but has a really good job. Functionality/reliability wins out in the end, but it could take a while to get there and to become intrigued. For example, Craigslist works, but it’s not pretty. Growth is slow, and things could work but the “wow” factor isn’t there from the start.
3. Then there are the rare websites that blend together attraction with perfect functionality. In real life, these are the professional athletes, movie actors and models who are not only beautiful, but are also highly functional individuals. In this last example are the objects of envy.

In real life, you don’t really have control over your looks. You do however, have control over your functionality. So there is shope for you no matter what your shortcomings may be! In the wonderful world of website design, life is even better. You have control over both your looks and functionality. So, why are there not more websites of envy out there?

The answer can be found in our lack of working together. When programmers set out to make a website, their main concern is functionality. Thus, their websites tend to function flawlessly, but their graphics resemble neglect. Artists on the other hand, are so concerned with looks that the functionality resembles neglect. The only real solution is to find a team or a firm that has already paired up artists with programmers. Over the last two years I have built a lot of websites for 2090 group. I had a hand in building everything from an online auto-mall to entire social networks. What I found was simple. It is impossible for a single person to do jaw-dropping graphics work and then immediately transition into mind-blowing programming.  People just don’t have enough energy for this. Even if you found someone who did, they would take at least 2X as long to finish the job.

In closing, consider the fact that it takes two people to make one life. Only when the right proportions are inherited does the final product get an automatic pass into the world of beautiful people. Before the actor/model was born, two people had to team-up to make it happen. If it is true in nature, than it is going to hold true on the web. When you are looking for a web design company to bring your project to life, find out who the programmer/artist team for your website is. If they are well matched, your website is almost guaranteed to be amazing! Just thought I would try and analogize one of the most overlooked aspects to amazing website design.

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