[thelist] webmonkey redesign

Jay Greenspan jay at trans-city.com
Thu Jun 14 16:40:13 CDT 2001


on 6/14/01 4:33 PM, Daniel J. Cody at djc at starkmedia.com wrote:

> 

> I work here too! And before money started being such a big factor
> lately, designers used to *strive* to make consistant navigation. Is it
> ok to *now* shrug off what everyone has been preaching about -
> pertaining to useability, good navigation, and consistancy - for the
> last 7 years, including webmonkey?

I in no way think they have "shrugged this off". I think the navigation
works fine, but then again, I wasn't present for this round of user tests (I
haven't worked there in some time), so I don't really know what they found.


> Hey, I'm sorry about the financial woes that webmonkey/lycos/terra is
> facing. But is terra/lycos/webmonkey running and developing sites only
> to provide what advertisers and the marketing department find usefull
> and attractive? Is the only reason they're mowing the lawn to make the
> 'For Sale' sign prettier? Is it marketing drones or designers who get to
> pick a look and feel these days at terra/lycos/webmonkey?

> And who, besides the ad sales force, find an intrusive and annoying
> banner ad that soaks up 20% of the screen real estate attractive?

You do realize that this company has a payroll, rent, power bill -- you
know, expenses?

There are also shareholders and investors. If they're not happy no ones
happy. I know that when I fire up schwab.com and look at my stocks I never
say, "you know, I've lost 50 percent of my value in that company, but their
site looks terrific."

To bring this back around to something that is on-topic: Design, for many,
is going to get a lot harder. Companies are going to push to see that every
possible cent can be take from every page view. In the current climate, that
means making more concessions to those willing to write a check. There's
just no way around it.


Any designers out there with related stories?


-j





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