The dark-skinned lady, probably an Acholi, smiled at me
from the middle of the restaurant, she had called me to come up with a web
design for her and embed a ticket booking system in it, clearly she knew what
she wanted but I didn’t know much about it except the little she had told me. “I
want something beautiful”, she said, “Something where someone comes, logs in and
books a ticket”, and shaking my head in convinced acceptance I said yes and I assured
her that what she wanted could be done if she could particularly tell me the
different parties that would be involved and what functionalities I would
involve in the system and then I kept quiet and she looked at me with worry
painted all over her face, for a moment i though that maybe she had not understood me or
maybe she doubted me, my skills and talents in programming or maybe she was
worried about particular features I would include in the design, but slowly she took
her hand away from the table and it went down browsing for something, she got
hold of it and brought it to the table, her bag, and then she asked, “How much……how
much will it cost?”.
Sincerely speaking, I had nothing to say.
It seems the moment people hear of website
designers and software engineers, they think, yeah those guys are making
zillions by the minute, those are the Mark Zukerbergs, and Bill Gates’ of our
age, they make money when they want.
However there is much to think about before
looking at the money designers make.
Clients never think about the quality of the
product the designer has delivered, the functionalities, the small holes that
may expose the system. All they look at is the beauty of the index page and
then they drown the designer’s account with “zillions”.
Let us take a look at the worst case scenario.
Imagine you are browsing the Internet one day and
bump onto this site where the links are dispersed all over the index page, the
pictures are moving across the page whereby the pictures on the upper part are
moving to the right and the ones on the lower part are moving to the left, the
heading on the page is “BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS” and yet it has pictures of computers
with their price tags upside down. Then there is this looping picture of a boy
kicking a ball just below, the picture keeps on repeating again and again , the
boy kicks the ball and the ball goes away and then it comes back and he kicks
it again and again and again, however when you click on it, it dims the screen
and a small notice (Javascript alert) appears in the middle of the screen
asking “DO YOU WANT TO BOOK A ROOM?” you press OK and it takes you to another
page where they are displaying Caskets.
These are pure features of a bad website, pictures
moving around in a disorganized format, poor user interaction, miscommunication
of the subject matter and disorganized content. The functionalities of the
different links and buttons are completely detached from the actual purpose and
the user is pissed and jeering at him/herself at the end of the experience.
The qualities of a good website range from the physical
design to the smallest functionalities that may hinder a good user experience
and those that may even compromise the system security. The security of the
database storing the information collected by the site should always be updated
and that explains the reason why a dedicated and updated IT team in the
organization owning the website should be sensitized by the developers of the
system about how to ensure the protection of the system from intruders. The
functionalities of the buttons and the links, the guidelines on how to use the
website should be clearly stated, clear contact information for further
consultation, immediate, accurate, complete, reliable and fresh responses to
the user. All this should be put into perspective by the developer and they should be emphasized by the client. Technically the site should engage the user and make him/her feel at
home. That’s what good sites are made of, beauty and functionality and your site
will appear first on the search results page; not for the money you have paid Google
for Search Engine Optimization but for its perfection and efficiency in giving the user appropriate information.
Thank You for Reading.
Kusemererwa Roy.
No comments:
Post a Comment