Thought this article made an excellent point. From a personal perspective, it’s something I’ve been conscious of when re-evaluating web design projects I’ve worked on.  In hindsight I feel that I’ve been too concerned with orthodox, good (clean, usable, idiot-proof), web design. The impression I’m getting after the sites have been online for some time is that both the site owners and their end customers are willing to sacrifice some usability in the user experience for website bling.

I really need to remember that style, even if it is style at the expense of what is conventionally regarded as “good design”,  does have substance – particularly with certain audiences.

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.

This was an impromptu demo that I tried with the CEO of Eswaran Brothers Tea. I went to EB with the guys from Picture This to discuss developing some product videos for Subra and the idea of doing a video interview with him came up. I wasn’t expecting to be on camera but we decided to go for an informal, chatty style and I was volunteered to be the interviewer.

It was a lot easier than I expected though that owed a lot to Subra. He’s an articulate guy and as long as the questions were sensible he has no problem taking the ball and running with it.

From a personal perspective I thought my body language could have been better. Physically I felt I was little hunched and wee bit twitchy. Also both Subra and I have know each other since high-school and we were both trying to suppress giggles over the fact we were doing a business interview together.

A fuller version should be online soon.

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These guys seem very creative industrial designers but I thought there was a basic UI issue with the product page, which led to a confusing user experience.

When clicking on the forward button next to the primary image on the product page, you are taken to a new (related) product.

I initially thought the button would take me to an alternative view of the product I was viewing as represented by the thumbnails below the main image. This was encouraged by the fact that there was no indication that there were a sub-set of related products to the main item.

A small thing but annoying thing in an otherwise simple but well executed website.

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