I’ve had an interesting run recently visiting some Sri Lankan businesses who are interested in website development. My intention when speaking to them was to stress the importance of content development and in conjunction with the guys from Picture This, the idea that Every Company is a Media Company. I expected some resistance and scepticism as these ideas are still just gaining traction overseas and IMHO Sri Lankan companies are considerably behind the curve in terms of their own websites. However, it was still quite an instructive experience to see the steep learning curve Sri Lankan companies have in terms of corporate website development.

The focus of the Sri Lanka based companies that I visited in terms of their websites was  on relatively superficial design issues – they clearly weren’t used to web design companies speaking to them about the importance of Information Architecture and User Experience. Their questions were very much a case of “Show us a nicer shade of blue than our competitors website”. As far as content went, the most sophisticated questions I faced were to do with Search Engine Marketing – mostly along the lines of optimsing the text. The Social Media questions by the Sri Lankan companies was almost wholly focused on the platforms – “Can you do facebook and twitter for us?” – and not on the content.

While not downplaying the importance of attractive, eye-catching web design, I did seek to speak on the importance of both the Information Architecture and my belief that websites now serve primarily as a host for high-quality content about a business. Endless cycles of redesigns based on competitor behaviour is a zero sum game and is distracting and a waste of resources. I used the example of these four large Sri Lankan conglomerates  as an example showing the similarities between their sites:

(In order from back to front: Aitken Spence, Hayleys, Hemas & John Keells)

It seems quite likely to me that these companies have been benchmarking themselves against each other and equivalent companies globally; the result is that they have sites that are fundamentally of the same design (a criticism of competitor companies that is not exclusively Sri Lankan). I know for a fact that they are all thinking about or in the process of major website redesigns in anticipation of the expected post-war economic boom. From my own experience and anecdotal knowledge I believe that they are again looking at this process as primarily as  an exercise in web design with some “Social Media” thrown in. As far as I know I (and I hope I am wrong in this) serious content development is not being treated with the importance it deserves. I think there are a few reasons for this:

1. The companies pitching to them don’t address issues of Information Architecture and Usability let alone Content Development. This may be because they don’t want to “confuse” the client but it does both the Sri Lankan web design industry and their clients a disservice.
2. The idea that websites are evolving to something more than depositories for company data is  too high-concept for the clients of the web design companies and possibly the web design companies themselves.
3. Content in the Sri Lankan market still means having a social media outlet. It still hasn’t got to the stage of thinking serious about what it published via those outlets.

I’ll be interested to see how things develop in the near future. The large web app project I’ve been working on for the last couple of years has reached the stage where the development is primarily on the business / VC side of things so I’m looking more seriously web development. It’ll be very interesting pitching again to Sri Lankan businesses and seeing how they react to alternative views of website design and content development.