As a web developer I often find myself struggling with the following dilemma – how much power should the end user have over the look and feel of the applications that I develop. 

Most people would shrug this off as a non-issue.  After all, why should I care about a web application after I turned it over to my client?  I did the work, I got paid, I am done!

Two days ago I decided to look through and update my web design/development portfolio.  I looked through a list of applications that I have built over the last 10 years and thought it would be great to see if the websites that I created are still up and running. 

I was shocked to find out how many of the companies that I worked with are no longer in business.  What shocked me even more was how horrible some of the websites that I designed look today.  Before you accuse me of being a bad web designer, let me just say this – the aforementioned web applications looked good when I handed them over.  The mistake that I made was giving my clients too much power over content.

In mid-1990s, when the Internet became the next best thing since sliced bread, everyone decided that they needed a web page.  Anyone with access to Microsoft Front Page and a couple of horrible animated GIFs suddenly became a web designer.  Overnight, the system that was designed for sharing knowledge and information became clogged with spinning icons, blinking fonts and obnoxious colors. (Homer Simpson`s Homepage)

The amazing thing is that most of those monstrosities’ owners do not have bad taste.  I’ve been to homes of some of my friends, co-workers and professors who created green and pink blinking web abominations and did not see plastic sculptures, hula dolls or ugly garden gnomes that would indicate complete lack of aesthetics.  However, when it comes to the web, people tend to have this notion that if you use bright colors and giant blinking fonts you are more likely to get your message across. 

The really sad thing is that people’s tastes did not seem to improve over the past decade and a rather large percentage of website owners are still trying to convert the Web into a Las Vegas casino (read garish, loud and obnoxious).

Case in point – about a year ago, my business partner and I designed a very nice, understated and elegant website for a client.  Unfortunately I cannot include screenshots of the original (or the current) website since I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands.  But take my word for it, the website was top-notch.  The one mistake that we made is that the custom content management system that we developed to go along with the website allowed site’s administrators to change font size, family and color. 

They (the website administrators) took this as an invitation to change things like

Customer Testimonials

to

Customer Testimonials

After the aforementioned geniuses were done with the content, the entire website looked like the paints section of an art supplies store exploded all over my screen.  For a few seconds, I wanted to shut down my web browser for the fear of an epileptic seizure.

Once again, why should I care?

The first and foremost reason for caring is very selfish – with the way the website looks now I cannot use it in my portfolio – no employer or client in his right mind would hire me after looking at what has become of my work.

Secondly, the way this website looks might prevent me from getting freelance referrals.  The company that maimed my web application is well known in Pittsburgh.  Sadly, they think that their website looks good and they brag about it at conferences and trade shows.  When people find out that I was the one who created it, I doubt that they’d want to work with me.

Finally, my business partner and I put two months of work into that web application and it is really upsetting to see what some talentless hack did to our efforts.

Just look at the difference between Facebook and MySpace.

Facebook – clean, professional, easy to read, easy to navigate

MySpace – Garish, unreadable, impossible to see navigation, f***ing ugly!!!

Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, creators of MySpace, probably cringe every time they see something like that.  They have unleashed a monster that has grown and mutated in something that in most cases is truly offensive.

Now, let me ask again – should developers give clients/end users full control over content?

From now on, I think that in most cases my answer would be a big, resounding NO!

And if you think that I am wrong, just click on the links below.

http://belladesoto.us/
http://www.lingscars.com/