blog
Language that Works
April 18th, 2008 by blehmanOne of the great challenges of being an IA is that it’s not nearly as much fun as design. It is for me, of course, but not for most clients. Even clients who understand the value of the work we do prior to design are prone to the dazzle factor once the comps show up. Conversation inevitably turns towards “can we make it blue? What if we move that over there?” To the chagrin of any number of designers, the design process invites participation and often falls to matters of (the client’s) taste.
As an IA, though, we need to pull the client away from judging and manipulating a design on the basis of “prettiness” (although that is certainly a valid component of a design’s success) and reintroduce the purpose: can the user identify the purpose and mission of the site, find what they need easily, and do what you/they need?
There’s a magic bullet for this, two little words that pull the client out of their design reverie and back into the world of design for function: Visual Heirarchy.
I don’t know why (no, really, I don’t). But for whatever reason, this phrase has amazing resonance. Incredibly easy to understand, it immediately puts the client back into the mindset of identifying what is important about their website, and deciding whether this is well represented. Once they are anchored back to this way of thinking, the rest becomes smooth sailing — the changes afterwards stop being about what the design is, and start accounting for what the design does.
