I’m going to write this, despite the recognition that it might go against the business of a number of Web Designers that want to push the artistic bubble. We do that too, we want to design cool stuff, but more about that later.
I, of all people, love to do stuff that I think nobody has done before. I love the challenge and I love the creative outlet. But, despite that. I normally have to retract my bold ideas and come back down to earth.
People expect stuff to be the same as they are familiar with. They expect web sites to behave like each other. We can push it and explore new ways, but a menu is a menu. If you make it hard to find or hard to see your menu or content, then you are making it hard for people to communicate with you.
Let me roll that back a bit and talk about communication. When you have a website, it is just one side of communication, one side of a conversation.
Roll that back a little bit more and think about conversation. Who started the conversation? If you think you started the conversation when you made a web site then you are wrong. The person starting the conversation is the person that comes to your web site. They come, silently, with questions. At that point in time you are entitled to answer their questions, but if they come, browse, and leave then you are left with ‘Hi, how are you?’ and ‘Have a nice day’, a bit like every tourist shop you have ever been in and never purchased from. If your website does not respond then you have probably failed to communicate.
You are the souvenir shop. You can shout and scream and coerce people into your store but, at the end of the day, you might not have what they are looking for.
As a digital agency, we develop the whole picture. What that means to us is directing people’s expectations from the minute they meet you, the conversation between and delivering to them what they expect. This isn’t a sales pitch, it is a realistic expectation of your client.
The point I am getting to is that you don’t need to run after the latest designs or fashions to deliver what your client needs. Your client needs business. Your client needs profit. Sometimes your own artistic desires might need to be reigned in a little so that you can deliver a predictable and extremely useful website. Your average cupcake store might not need an Andy Warhol website 😀
We can do Andy Warhol at The Moose, but we tend to do nuts-and-bolts, beans-on-toast web sites that deliver customers and profits.
We try to slide in a few cool things and push the world forward with each web site, but not at the cost of making your web site work for you and your business.
The founders of The Moose have worked in retail, consumer electronics, real-estate, physical fitness, medical, defense, avionics, pyramid schemes and high tech. We understand startups, small business and great ideas. From there, we understand what a web site needs to deliver.
Normally I would close with a call to action, but if you have read this then there is no need for me to tell you whether you should contact us or not. The link to contact us is on this page and you should not need a map to find it. We would love to hear from you and willing to answer your questions.