Is Web Design overrated?

This one might seem like an interesting question coming from someone who makes a living out of designing websites. And no, I’m not planning on shooting myself in the leg here.

Take a moment and think about what does Web Design mean? Is it just whipping out a few colors and shapes in Photoshop (or your favorite graphic software for that matter) and then translating this magnificent work of art into XHTML, CSS and images, or is it a bit more than that? There are lots of websites out there that promote web design—the so-called “showcase websites”—some providing better content than others, but that’s not the point of this article. The point is that it’s strictly about the design and the way these websites look. Should someone come across a good looking color scheme on a particular website, the next day it’s featured on a dozen showcase websites and everyone’s giving praises to its designer. Sounds familiar?

Let’s try and take a look at all this from another angle. Ask anyone who he/she thinks are the ten most successful websites out there. You’ll find out that the answers will almost always contain the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Amazon, eBay, Craigslist and others very similar. Are these remarkably designed websites? I’d say not.

So how can this be? Almost everywhere you look on the web there’s someone talking about the latest design trends and what-not, yet when it comes to results, these fail to appear. The answer is simple: Web Design isn’t just about pushing pixels just to make something look good, it’s much more than that. It’s content, information flow, usability and graphic appearance all rolled into one. Out of all these, the graphic design part carries the least significance to the end user. It is there only to complement the others, yet it seems to get all the attention. The user couldn’t care less if the background on your website is green or blue as long as the information he’s after is hidden away or the task he’s trying to perform requires a master degree in user interfaces.

So next time you tackle that website design project, think about the content first, think about the ultimate goal. See the website as a whole and not just a combination of shapes and colors. Think actions, not pixels!