I asked a question the other day on Twitter: What would you respond to the comment, “Content is more important than design.” The first response I usually get is content – content is king. If you go to a site and there isn’t any content to engage with or provide value, and it doesn’t get you thinking, there’s really no point or purpose to it. Content that changes, gets updated frequently and is genuine is usually the first element in any order of importance in relation to what people want to see when they visit your site.
Kyle Placy, a friend and designer responded, “Hmmm, content is more important than design… I think that is a relative statement. You can have great content and a terribly designed blog and the content is moot. I would say on a sliding scale content is more important but there is a fine line to draw between clean and easy design to terrible design.”
Vicky Hennegan said that content is more important but a good design can affect how long you stay on a site.
I read a lot of blogs and visit a lot of websites. We all do. Sometimes it’s part of my job to go find information from a website and sometimes that is all I’m there to do. If I like the look of the site I might spend a little more time and read some posts. If the site is appealing either because of its design or function capabilities I might click through and check out some features. I will definitely return if I like the content but I will also return if I liked the look (design) and feel (function) of the site. Things to consider:
1. Does everything your site/blog “say” it can do work? For example, links, pages, signup for RSS feeds, newsletters etc.? Do all the functions work the way they were intended to?
2. Do you have your contact info somewhere easy to find? You may not want people emailing you; that’s fine but chances are at some point someone is going to want to reach you. Will they easily be able to find this information? I sometimes have to collect contact info from websites and am so surprised when I have to hunt to find it. Home page is best if you want to be found.
3. Do you have all your social platforms listed on your site somewhere?
4. Not everyone has a designer. Not everyone needs one, in fact. WordPress, Blogger and Thesis have made it really quite easy and painless to customize your site. Twitter is a great resource as well – ask for help and you’ll get it!
Design, function, or content, which is more for you?
from Kathryn Jennex aka northernchick
photocredit – Anna Hape