OK, the other day me and a friend who also is a designer was speaking about website design and got on to the topic of: [What's the perfect website].

 

So I thought is would be good to see what other designers and developers on here thought and what your opinions are.

 

Is it a site that looks badly design but ranks on the first page in organic SEO,

 

Is it a site that is beautifully designed, but ranks poorly

 

or Is it a site that just has many repeat visitors, but the validation is all messed up and the whole site was designed using tables.

 

Love to here what my fellow designers think

In my humble opinion, a site is something that does it's job properly.

 

You could argue any of those points above validly. BUT a site that has a very niche market doesn't need to be top of the rankings, and a site that is all about functionality doesn't need to be well designed... equally a graphic designer doesn't need to worry about his site validating or being built in tables because people are not judging his development skills, they are using him as an offline designer...

 

There is no such thing as the perfect site in general, just the perfect site FOR the job in mind

 

Nice thread

In my humble opinion, a site is something that does it's job properly.

 

You could argue any of those points above validly. BUT a site that has a very niche market doesn't need to be top of the rankings, and a site that is all about functionality doesn't need to be well designed... equally a graphic designer doesn't need to worry about his site validating or being built in tables because people are not judging his development skills, they are using him as an offline designer...

 

There is no such thing as the perfect site in general, just the perfect site FOR the job in mind

 

Nice thread

 

never looked upon it like that.

I think "perfection" can never be achieved - just aspired to. But if there was such a thing it would be 100% customer focussed with design, presentation and content. For my money Amazon is probably the leader in this field?

I think "perfection" can never be achieved - just aspired to. But if there was such a thing it would be 100% customer focussed with design, presentation and content. For my money Amazon is probably the leader in this field?

 

 

Does that mean we will never be happy with the sites we design, whether they work for the customers or not.

Essentially yes! If you stop finding ways to improve what you do you never make any progress

Funnily enough web designers tend to see the perfect website in terms of the perfect design. And that ain't it at all!

 

The perfect commercial website is the one that gives the highest return on investment - simple. It doesn't matter how it's coded or what it looks like! If it makes the maximum potential profit for the site owner that's possible given the situation then it's perfect.

 

For non-profits then substitute profit for response. It must get the maximum response possible. e.g. non-profits getting support for a cause, clubs getting members, job-hunters getting positions...

 

But I suppose that wasn't the question!

 

Like the thread too - hopefully we won't get answers like "onez dat use gradients n' stuff"!

Funnily enough web designers tend to see the perfect website in terms of the perfect design. And that ain't it at all!

 

The perfect commercial website is the one that gives the highest return on investment - simple. It doesn't matter how it's coded or what it looks like! If it makes the maximum potential profit for the site owner that's possible given the situation then it's perfect.

 

For non-profits then substitute profit for response. It must get the maximum response possible. e.g. non-profits getting support for a cause, clubs getting members, job-hunters getting positions...

 

But I suppose that wasn't the question!

 

Like the thread too - hopefully we won't get answers like "onez dat use gradients n' stuff"!

 

 

Wizely, lol

 

undoubtedly someone will drop them answers in