Parallels: presentation design and web site design

Most web sites are designed around functional content rather than story: find our address, learn about our environmental policies, see how we value compliance, here is a list of all the products we sell. But is that what should get all the attention? Maybe a first-time visitor of a company web site is more interested in the story behind the company? That story should be eye catching. The functional information should be accessible, but does not have to jump at you when you enter.

Similar to PowerPoint templates, web site templates waste too much space on screen clutter. Multiple menu structures, lots of links, buttons. It is all too busy and confusing. The language on corporate web sites is full of clichés. The text sort of all say the same thing. Images are often the cheesy stock photos that good presentation designers try to avoid.

Corporates probably copy each other. They brief a design agency with “I want something like that”. As a result, the same concept gets repeated and repeated. Web design is probably mostly lead by technology developers, not story tellers. The structure, the layering, the architecture come first.

Maybe corporate web design is also ready for a revolution, and maybe story designers can play a big role in it?

4 comments

Andrew Marritt2011-08-10 05:09:31

In my past, running a global, multi-language careers site for a major European bank I always had to battle internal stakeholders to put company history on the site. The stats clearly showed it was one of the most popular sections, especially in Asian markets.

The key difference between a web design and a presentation is that with a presentation you control the flow and destination. With a website the user does depending on what they came to achieve. The trick is to identify through research what these goals are and create logical paths that enable you to tell your stories. at the moment I'm using the same principles (and techniques) to create interactive dashboards that guide, using design, users through the stories their data holds.

Jan Schultink2011-08-16 07:08:34

No one comes to mind instantly, but I will start jotting them down when I see them.

Jan Schultink2011-08-10 05:58:21

Thank you Andrew for your insights. It think that in a strange way, new HTML5 swiping mechanisms might help cut down the degrees of freedom the visitor has and provide more opportunity to tell a lineair story. That is actually what a lot of these Flash scrolling images at current web sites do.

Chen Barnea-Didi2011-08-14 11:37:58

Hi Jan,
Really like this post! We are now starting a project of creating a new website, and after looking at many company websites, most of them look exactly the same, which is both very boring and also makes it hard to understand the most basic thing - what is this company doing and what is so unique about it...

(having said that the feeling of familiarity is extremely important when entering a new website)

Do you have example of company sites working more according to a distinct story and less according to the usual template used by everyone?