Dreamache's Random Design Tip #3 : Research before you design

[dreamache]

Too many designers jump right into a design without first researching the market. Now I understand that most designers receive specific instruction from clients, but there are a certain percentage of cases (ie designing for yourself, or having retard clients) where you need to do the research.

What do I mean by research?
Take a look at what other *successful* sites are doing in their layout / approach. If possible, use existing traffic logs to analyze visitor behavior.

If you see a successful competitor really pushing something a certain way, learn from it and do it better.

Lose the ego
Some designers, particularly a lot of the amateurs are more about trying to "Show off" than actually provide a really usable and efficient layout. Don't waste any unnecessary space, it's all about the visitor - not you!


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[Supergeek]

I think your statement is valid for a newbie, but a bit simplistic in the long run.

A successful site can be successful even if their design sucks, or is just mediocre. A lot of larger sites go through periodic redesigns, and may emphasize completely different things.

Some companies spend tons of money on design, analyzing ad and content placement, while others are very cheap and rely on the strength of their content to overcome their poor or inefficient design.

Your best bet is to analyze a lot of different successful sites, especially within a genre, and copy their strengths, but don't be too afraid to try something different either. You can run several versions of your site, polls or click analysis versus each to identify effectiveness, or post here and ask us to give our not so humble opinions.