Content first or design?

May 10, 2008

Nice discussion going on, on Jeffrey’s blog, regarding what should come first: the design of the website, or its content. He stresses that designers should deeply study the content of the website before getting on with the design.

I have had experience from both the sides (oh! this sounds kinky). I have made websites, and now I create content. For me it’s never been a hard and fast rule. It depends on the focus of the website. Of course it helps if you know what sort of content the website is going to carry.

When designing websites one should keep in mind that it’s not the design that plays a dominant role; it’s the content, because after all you communicate through your content. Of course design should be pleasing and if you are a web designer or a visual artist then the visual elements on your website should be attractive to look at, but if you are a writer, or a consultant, or providing a product or a service through your website, then the most important thing is the message, the content. The entire design should evolve around the content.

The design is like a gadget, take for instance a TV set. No matter how cool-looking your TV set is, if there is no program worth-watching, the TV set is of no use.

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5 Responses to “Content first or design?”

Chris Moritz
May 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Agreed. 95% of websites should be designed around the content; the exceptions being (maybe) photography- or art-centric sites.
Thx for the link to zeldman - axed his blog from my feed reader during a painful (and sanity-saving) trimming about a year ago.
Shane: content writer
May 12th, 2008 at 2:01 am
@ Chris.. In the case of your two examples the photos or art would be the content (Remember, not all content is written) and I believe it’s even more important in these cases for the content to be the focus, for the design to revolve around the content, the design of a website acts as a showcase, to display and complement the content.
Amrit Hallan
May 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
@Shane: good point! Content isn’t always text. Anything that is published on your website is content.
@Chris: glad that you found the Zeldman blog here. I don’t go there often but I like that blog.
Chris Moritz
May 12th, 2008 at 8:33 am
@Shane - stipulated - especially in the construct of the design of the site as a wrapper for the content vs the content (in whatever format) itself.
how you can create websites
May 15th, 2008 at 1:36 am
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