Content and design. Written communications and visual communications. When it comes to creating winning websites, which plays a more important role? Our web copywriters reached out to six experienced agency professionals from the US, Canada and England to get their take.

Web content or design — which is more important?

James Archer
Managing Director, Forty

“At Forty, we view words and visuals as inseparably intertwined; they’re just different manifestations of the same message.

“We always assign both a writer and a designer to every project, and our brand strategy work always includes both verbal and visual direction.

“Ultimately, the viewer doesn’t distinguish between the visual design and the verbal message of a piece. They take in the overall experience, and they remember (or don’t) based on what they feel.

“Because we take the approach of focusing on the overall experience rather than a ‘words first’ or ‘design first’ approach, we find it works best when designers and writers work side by side. Not always possible, but certainly the ideal.”

Follow James @jamesarcher

William A. Beachy
President, Go Media Inc.

“When I was in college, there were two bulletin boards in the lobby of my dorm. The first bulletin board was maintained by the resident advisers and was intended for all of the residents. It was a colorful explosion of photos, event fliers, clip-art, logos and decorative trim. Just to the left of that was the second bulletin board; maintained and intended for the engineering club. On it were plain white 8.5×11 sheets of paper with single-spaced black type neatly hung in a perfect grid. There wasn’t a single image, color or graphical element anywhere on the engineers’ bulletin board.

“So, which one was the superior bulletin board? Well, my answer, as it relates to this question of content versus design is — it depends. It depends who your audience is. It depends what your content is. In this specific case, the engineers’ bulletin board was superior — for the engineers, and probably nobody else. As with any website development project, you have to start with understanding the user. And to use this oft quoted design axiom: form follows function. You have to know what the purpose of the site is. Only then can you possibly answer the question of what’s more important.”

Follow William @william_beachy

Christina Calderon
Creative Director, JB Chicago

“I believe that there should be a perfect marriage between function and form. As a visual person, I am naturally drawn to websites that look good, but as a Creative Director I fully understand the value in content and the written language. Words bring clarity and act as the persuasive element to a message.

“Ideally, there should be a call to action and sense of urgency wrapped around a good, compelling design in order to engage and move the consumer, so any good ad contains a combination of the two. The story that is told through visual means is reinforced by the copy — the tagline seals the deal.”

Follow Christina @cryandesign

Jason Hamilton
Director, Digital Marketing, Acart Communications

“If, by design, we are referring to the visual look and feel of a site, and, by content, we are referring to the information that resides on the site, then content wins hands down.

“When someone visits your website, blog or Facebook page, they do not visit to stare in awe of your beautiful design; they visit for one reason: they have a problem that needs solving. Whether that problem is where to find the lowest gas prices, how to measure social media, or discover Charlie Sheen’s latest crazy stunt, they are looking for an answer. Knowing what your audience is looking for and creating quality content around that is the key to effective Web communications.

“Content is not, and should not be, restricted to the written word; video, audio, and infographics are increasingly popular and should be part of any effective content strategy.

“I am not saying that visual design is not important. It is, because effective design supports and enhances (not dictates) content, whereas quality content inspires and guides design.

“Look at Wikipedia, Craigslist, and Google — three of the most successful websites in the world — and ask yourself why you return to these sites?”

Follow Jason @acartcomm

Ben Harris
Managing Director, New Brand Vision Group

“When it comes to the creation of quality website design, text and images should not be thought of in isolation, as a healthy balance of both content and visual communications is essential for a successful approach.

“To begin with, part of your audience will be more visual, while others will respond more proactively to information, and it is therefore vital that you communicate to both sets of audiences.

“It is also important to recognize that content and visuals provide two slightly different functions on a website. Inviting branding will make your website more appealing and memorable, while the right content will demonstrate thought leadership and improve search engine rankings.

“Bold, attractive visuals are what initially attract a user’s attention; while quality content will draw that user into a deeper level of engagement.

“This psychological understanding of user behaviour is critical to a websites success, and must be addressed in the early stages of the planning process. Knowing where to use content and where to use visuals, and how to effectively blend the two is the key to achieving both aesthetic and ergonomic success with your website design.”

Follow Ben @NewBrandVision

Cynthia Passanante
Director, Design & UI, TRAFFIQ, and Blogger, CMYKaboom

“Can you compare a car to its driver? Likewise, to compare design and content is an irrational exercise, as they each serve unique, vital functions in the digital landscape. When used properly, they are two assets that work in tandem to create a holistic, sublime experience, not forces vying for significance.

“Within the industry the phrase, ‘content is king’ is thrown around a great deal. I would position it more as a lesser duke. The goal of a successful site is not only to deliver unique content, but to do so in a way that is intuitive and accessible to the end user. Design is imperative to accomplish this task. It is the vehicle that drives content to the user — without one, the other invariably falters.

“Don’t believe me? I propose an experiment — take your best content, and type it out in black text on a site with a black background. Granted, this is a rather heavy-handed example, but one that summarizes the subtler problem found on countless websites: no matter how sexy the material, if the interface does not offer ease of discovery then the content will rot on the vine, search engine or no search engine.

“The king is dead. Long live the diarchy!”

Follow Cynthia @CMYKaboom

What’s your take on website content versus design?

A recent controversial documentary Game of Death reveals how TV game show participants knowingly inflicted pain and potential death on a fellow contestant in a bid to comply with authority. The shocking outcome reinforces the findings of another controversial experiment led by Yale University in the 1960s. It’s something marketers take advantage of, and consumers should be aware of.

Game of Death

Filmmaker Christophe Nick helped conduct the experiment in the form of a TV game show, where 80 participants were asked to follow explicit rules. On a real set in a television studio with a live audience, the host asked participants to pull levers to apply electric shocks to a fellow game show participant, which gradually increased from 20 to 460 volts. Neither the participants, nor the audiences, were aware the shocks were staged, and the recipient was an actor.

At 80 volts, the recipient began voicing his pain, and eventually went silent, suggesting he had passed out, or worse. However, despite the cries for the shocks to stop, or subsequent deathly silence, eight out of 10 participants continued to adhere to the host’s demands to continue, ultimately delivering what they believed was a massive 460-volt jolt.

The results were similar in a 1963 scientific experiment, led by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, where 65% of participants complied with a researcher’s request to deliver shocks to others right through to the 450-volt maximum.

Why Did They Do It?

Milgram concluded it has to do with the deep-seated sense of duty to authority. In neither study, were the participants deemed sadistic, cowardly or immoral — they never hurt people before. The researchers insist they merely submitted to authority.

As members of society, we’re taught to follow authority at the earliest stages in life, starting with complying to our parents’ orders. And, as adults, we carry on this path, presumably to avert anarchy.

Authority Influencers in Marketing

People are vulnerable to mere symbols of authority, not just substance, suggests author Dr. Robert Cialdini. For instance, he stated in his book, Influence: Science and Practice: “We can see that advertisers have frequently commissioned the respect accorded doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the roles of doctors speaking on behalf of the product.”

He cited a commercial that featured actor Robert Young warning people against the dangers of caffeine and recommending caffeine-free Sanka coffee. The commercial was so successful that it was played in various forms for years. It worked because Americans associated him with Dr. Marcus Welby, a popular TV character.

Cialdini noted: “Objectively, it doesn’t make sense to be swayed by the comments of a man we know to be just an actor who used to play a doctor; but, practically, that man sold the Sanka.”

While doctors, accountants and lawyers — or actors portraying these professionals — can get consumers to take actions that go against their own preference, celebrities seem to carry similar clout.

Consider rapper 50 Cent getting youth to believe that Vitamin Water, loaded with chemicals, sugar and a trace of synthetic vitamins, is good for you. Or celebrities like game show host Alex Trebek providing advice on osteoporosis and calcium in a ‘got milk?’ campaign.

Three Highly Effective Symbols of Authority

These symbols, according to Cialdini, can “reliably trigger our compliance in the absence of the genuine substance of authority.”

Titles

Titles are both the most difficult and the easiest authority symbols to acquire. “To earn a title normally takes years of work and achievement,” noted Cialdini. He added, “Yet, it is possible for somebody who has put in none of this effort to adopt the mere label and receive a kind of automatic deference.”

It brings to mind a natural shampoo founder in Canada, who uses his first two initials, D.R., before his surname, perhaps to create a perception that he’s a doctor. Or certain ‘degrees’ that some radio guests use to impress listeners, which can be ordered online for a few dollars in just minutes. One site asks: “Are you looking to earn an accredited degree without having to study, take exams, attend classes, or pay a hefty fee?”

Clothes

Clothes can make the man, and the sale. Slick suits can be effective authority symbols, along with hospital whites, holy blacks, army green or police blue.

In separate experiments in 1974 and 1988, males and females went to the street and asked passer-bys to comply with odd requests, i.e. pick up trash. When they made the requests wearing regular street clothes, few subjects acted. However, when they wore guard-like costumes, many people complied.

In another study highlighted in Influence, researchers got a 31-year-old man to violate the law by crossing the street against the traffic light on several occasions. In half the cases, he was dressed in a freshly pressed business suit and tie; on the other occasions, he wore a work shirt and trousers. Cialdini reported three-and-a-half times as many people followed the suited jaywalker.

Trappings

While fancy titles and expensive clothes carry an aura of status and position, so do trappings, such as jewelry and cars.

In San Francisco, researchers found that most people would wait patiently behind a new, luxury car stopped at a green light. However, people were quick to lay on the horn — or even ram the rear bumper (it happened twice) — when an older, economy model was in the way.

A software company employee and Webcopyplus client once told a story about how several people flocked to him for business advice when he drove a late-model, cherry red Porche. “They asked me how to launch this product, or run a restaurant,” he said. “How the heck would I know about running a restaurant?” A few years later, when he swapped the sporty number for a more practical Honda Civic, the questions came to a grinding halt. He said, “No one asks me for business advice anymore.”

What Does the Future Hold?

As the Internet and smart phones continue to accelerate the pace of business and life, will this automatic ‘mindless’ compliance to authority — perceived or real — escalate?

It actually appears social media technology, like Twitter and Facebook, is curbing people’s willingness to blindly obey, by helping us gather broader knowledge, views and strength from peers, or ‘friends’.

One of the game show participants stated in a follow-up interview that he felt so alone and isolated during the ordeal as he continued to pull the levers to deliver increasingly powerful shocks. Perhaps if he had an iPhone and Twitter at hand he would have gained the courage to stand up to the host and disobey her orders.

Consider how consumers can now gang up on corporations and institutions and rapidly spread previously suppressed information. Or how social media is helping citizens in the Middle East connect and organize efforts to overthrow decade-old regimes.

By connecting people or peers, the new social phenomenon is weakening and undermining authorities’ once supreme control. Bit by bit, the power is shifting to the people.

Does your web copywriting alienate or embrace your target audiences? Tapping into the science of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) might provide you some insight and direction on what words to use in your marketing messages.

Creating Customer Rapport with Neuro-Linguistic Programming

One component of NLP is how to develop rapport between two communicating parties. Usually applied to non-verbal communications, NLP uses mirroring to decrease resistance when two people communicate. For example, if one person leans forward slightly, then the other person leans forward. If one person scratches his nose, then the other person might scratch her hip. Mirroring creates rapport, reduces resistance, and increases openness to the other person’s message.

Applying Mirroring to Copywriting

You can apply mirroring to written words with the same effect. In copywriting, this means matching tone and word choice to your target market. For example, compare how these companies match the words and tone of their tag lines to their target markets:

Apple: Think different

Parenting by Nature: High Standards for Conscientious Families

Diabolical Skate Shop: We are the Diabolical Skateboard Shop. All Killer, No Filler!

Each of these companies has a different target market and uses different words and tone to reach them.

Think about your company. Is your web copy creating rapport or alienating potential customers?

“Something looks funny with the web copy…it looks really bad.” That was a part of the message we recently received form a client who was reviewing a design mock-up for his soon-to-be-launched website. “We really like the copy,” they had said just a few days earlier. So they liked what it stated, just not how it looked. The culprit: typography.

Typography is an important design element. It can aid readability and usability, and help convey the right message. In fact, experienced designers use typography to portray a certain purpose, impression and brand, skillfully blending fonts with designs.

Good Typography Example

Poor Typography Example

Kerning, Tracking, Leading, etc.

But what if you don’t know about kerning, line height, tracking, leading, and other advanced design elements? Well, you could seek insight from some informative articles:

• 5 Simple Steps to Better Typography
• 20 Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Web Typography
• 50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web Typography
• The Typographic Scale

Or, you could just leave it to the pros, and hire a well-versed designer who will get your typography right, and make your website pleasing to look at and easy to read.

Hysteria continues to grow since a news source reported Americans are collectively becoming paralyzed due to documents comprising “solid blocks of uninterrupted text.”

As the public grew more desperate, reporters stated, scholars were working to randomly italicize different sections of the text, hoping the italics will land on the important parts and allow everyone to get on with their day.

Reportedly, millions of “panicked and exhausted” Americans continued to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning.

While the report came from The Onion, an American news satire organization, it makes you realize just how the Internet has influenced writing. When consuming messages, we now depend on and desire clean, concise content with short paragraphs, sub headlines, bolded and italicized text, and images, to boot.

So don’t force your audience to plow through mind-numbing blocks of text. Instead, just KISS.

The Apple logo on a laptop or phone may evoke the same feelings for some people as a crucifix or Star of David pendant does for others, suggests research by Tel Aviv University, Duke University and New York University scientists. According to their research, brands are a form of self-expression and a token of self-worth, just like symbolic expressions of one’s faith.

Considerable statistical evidence supports the theory that consumers buy particular brands to express who they are to the outside world. From clothing choices to cultural events, people communicate their personalities and values through their purchases.

To better understand the relationship between religiosity and brand reliance in the U.S., the university research team conducted field and lab experiments, reported PhysOrg.com. In the field study, they collected data on the number of major-brand stores (e.g. Apple, Macy’s and Gap) per capita and correlated this with the number of religious congregations per thousand people, as well as with individuals who reported frequent attendance at church. Adjusting for economic, educational and urbanization factors, the team found a negative correlation between religiousness and brand choice.

In the lab experiment the college students were divided into two groups. The first group was asked to write a short essay about what religion means to them personally, while the second group wrote a more casual essay about their day. Both groups then participated in a simulated shopping experience that offered both national and store brands, including items such as sunglasses, fashion accessories, batteries and pain reliever medications. This was coupled with an Internet study, in which over 300 participants were asked to write about their religious practices and then went through the same simulated shopping experience.

PhysOrg.com reported: “Researchers discovered that those participants who wrote about their religion prior to the shopping experience were less likely to pick national brands when it came to products linked to appearance or self-expression ― specifically, products which reflected status, such as fashion accessories and items of clothing. For people who weren’t deeply religious, corporate logos often took the place of religious symbols like a crucifix or Star of David, providing feelings of self-worth and wellbeing.”

So if you’re a brand manager, you might want to study the demographics of your markets in a different way, noted Duke University’s Gavan Fitzsimons: “If you knew that your target customers were largely more religious, that’d probably suggest the store brand path would be easier. If you knew that your customers were largely not at all religious, that suggests that you might want to focus more toward building a national brand.”

Brand Loyalty

The study reinforces the need for companies to clearly communicate who they are and what they stand for. A strong brand forges an emotional connection with desired audiences (for more, read Building Your Online Brand With Words). This is in large part why customers defend companies like Google and Apple so fanatically. As humans, we want to belong to a community. Some follow Jesus — others follow Steve Jobs.

Next, the researchers hope to clarify how the relationship between advertising and religion affects branding in international markets, considering whether a strong religious presence in a particular geographical area might block the expansion of brands.

Do you spend more time than you need to on Facebook, Twitter, Google and any other of the two billion websites floating around the Internet? You may be suffering from a condition scientists are calling Information Deprivation Disorder.

In a global study called Unplugged, volunteers at 12 universities around the globe were asked to keep detailed logs while spending 24 hours in a tech and information blackout, without cell phones, computers, iPods, and other media.

People reported feeling fidgety. Silence was strange and uncomfortable. Participants kept looking for the phones, even though they weren’t carrying them. Students likened the experience to going on a diet, giving up smoking and going cold turkey. The word “addiction” kept recurring.

However, Bournemouth University researcher Dr. Gerodimos told the Telegraph: “As they got used to it they began to notice more things around them like birds singing or hearing what their neighbours were doing.”

Signs You’re Addicted to Your iPhone or Blackberry

Are you addicted to the Internet? Your iPhone? Blackberry? Take a quick test by reviewing the following points. If you’re reading this on your phone, just skip down to the diagnosis.

1. The magazine rack in the bathroom has become obsolete.
2. You’ve developed the ability to read e-mails unbeknownst to others at the dinner table.
3. Your friends get concerned if they don’t get an e-mail response from you within 30 seconds.
4. You’ve experienced deeply religious “Thank God” moments after finding your iPhone or Blackberry in your other pocket.
5. Humans have become annoying things that disrupt quality time with your iPhone or Blackberry.

Diagnosis: If you can relate to at least three out of the five points above, you might need to seek professional help. The good news is reSTART offers a retreat center on-site stabilization and detox program, where you stay 45 days in a “safe, natural family setting designed to feel like ‘home’.” The cost: $14,500 US, plus additional fees.

That could sure buy a lot of gadgets, including the new smaller and thinner iPad, which will be released later this year, complete with a camera. Maybe Steve Jobs will approve an app that lets you hook it directly to your veins.

Recently, 52 Weeks of UX posted an article that challenged a commonly held opinion regarding web content — that it should be as concise and simple as possible in order to appeal to the average web user, whose attention span online doesn’t often creep past a few seconds.  The popular theory goes, that if you don’t deliver the pertinent facts quickly, your website visitors will get frustrated and go elsewhere to find the information they desire.

In response to the point that web copy should be brief, the article’s author, Joshua Porter, stated: “There are several problems with this assumption, however. First, people do actually read on the Web…scanning is simply the first step in the process. Second, short text can be just as poorly written as long text (and often is). Third, people actually seek out and enjoy reading longer texts.“

Here are the author’s points supporting this statement, and our take:

Porter: People scan first, then read. Scanning is merely the first step, not a substitute for reading a full text, and this step isn’t affected by the length of the text.  Once we discover that we’ve found what we are looking for, we dive in and read the rest.

Webcopyplus: This is true, therefore, it is still important to make the scannable parts quick and easy to find. However, objectives and the type of information are important to consider. For example, when visiting a business website, people want to know right away what that company can do for them. Business prospects looking for products or services aren’t likely inclined to grab a tea or latte, cuddle up to their computer and spend an afternoon perusing a website. They want to quickly complete a task and get on with their busy day, so they’re usually better served with clear, concise content.

If someone is reading fiction online, or in-depth investigative journalism, yes, well-written, longer text can be fitting.

Porter: Text length doesn’t equal quality. For a bad writer, short copy is easier to write than long copy.

“It is important how short text gets short. If text is kept short merely to stay within the guideline, chances are it doesn’t do all that it needs to do. But if text is short as the result of careful writing and revision, with a strict adherence to saying all that is necessary as briefly as possible, then your text won’t just be short, it will also be good. (and thus read)

“Short copy shouldn’t be a goal, it should be an ideal. Like Einstein’s famous quip, ‘Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler’, in writing we want to ‘write as concisely as possible, but don’t leave anything out’.”

Webcopyplus: Bad copy is bad copy no matter the length. It’s also common for business owners to get carried away endlessly waxing poor poetics about all the things they love about their business, unless they’re armed with professional copywriting skills and the marketing insight to recognize what’s important to their customers.

In support of the Einstein quote, you don’t have to, nor should you ever, leave important points out in order to abide by the concise copy rule. Unless, of course, you want to instill curiosity to entice your web visitors to contact you for more information.

Porter: People enjoy longer texts. Given the choice, most people would choose a longer, well-written piece of text than a shorter one. This is proven by the rising popularity of e-readers like Kindle and the iPad, and the success of long copy used by Groupon.

Webcopyplus: Again, if we’re talking about fiction or an article on VanityFair.com this point is valid. As fellow writers, we certainly see the value in a nice chunk of good writing that we can sink our teeth into. But who goes to a business website in place of a good book? Most people go to a business website to get facts and get something done. On a side note, concise web copy can be creative and compelling, too. As for Groupon, the most enticing aspect is likely the large type dollar amounts that represent the savings.

Conclusion…

The right choice between short and long web copy often comes down to the objectives, key messages that need to be conveyed, the audience that’s being targeted, and the task that needs to be completed.  Both can work effectively.

However, studies primarily support the use of short copy, including comprehensive research carried out by Jakob Nielsen, which suggest copy should be even shorter for newsletters and mobile consumption.

To see an example of short web copy versus longer text, check out this WhichTestWon.com A/B test. Make your choice, and then see which version performed better.

What’s your take? Do you prefer your web copy long or short?

Online visitors form a first impression of a website quicker than the blink of an eye — literally. It typically takes humans 300 to 400 milliseconds to blink. Meanwhile, scientific research led by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard at Carleton University in Ontario reveals websites have as little as 50 milliseconds to establish a first impression — a mere 1/20th of a second. That’s it!

This is crucial information for any business because once a visitor forms an impression on a subconscious level, he or she will selectively search for information confirming that impression. People do this because we all want to prove we have good judgement. So, if our first impression of a website is negative, we have a tendency to mainly seek and see the negatives, regardless how good a business’ products and services might actually be. Alternatively, if we immediately like what we see, we’ll look for positive information to reinforce that impression.

So how do you avoid making a bad first impression on the Web? Easy. Get a good designer.

Poor Design Sets the Stage For Failure

DIY website design might seem like a good idea at the get-go. Not only can you avoid spending wads of money on eccentric creative types, but only you know how you really want your business branded. No one loves your business like you do! Plus, throwing together a layout with some colours, images and buttons while sipping on a Caramel Macchiato on a spare Sunday afternoon would be easy, right?

Wrong. Based on 20-plus years of communications experience, speaking at Web-related events, and teaching web writing courses to small business owners, our copywriters have come to recognize a common cycle:

1. The do-it-yourselfer spends several hours to a few weeks building a website.

2. The website is launched.

3. The website is live, but there are few visitors that trickle in, if any at all. The few who arrive don’t stick around.

4. Typically, 12 to 24 months later, if they’re still in business, they reach out to specialists to improve their SEO. If they get rankings, they wonder why the emails and calls still aren’t arriving.

5. Another six to 12 months later, they start to realize the website isn’t working, and it’s not going to fix itself. Then comes the sobering realization that in addition to wasting a few hundred dollars and countless hours, and enduring unnecessary stress, they missed out on about three years of opportunities, revenues and growth.

Looking at the ROI

Before making the decision to do things on the cheap or go the do-it-yourself route, it’s important to consider the bottom line. Let’s say a professional website costs Dean the Mover $7,500. That’s a lot of pocket change. But, if it generates just four sales a month at an average of $300 a pop, that’s $14,400 worth of business in the first year alone.

Those are conservative numbers, but regardless, the site’s paid for in about six months. And the business can continue to benefit from the website with minimum costs for several years. That’s an outstanding marketing investment and ROI. Our copywriting firm has teamed up with designers to create websites that paid for themselves in as little as three months.

So, while many business owners view design as a fluffy, abstract, let’s-play-with-colours-and-move-the-logo-around activity, they’re missing the point. Design is not art that merely exists. Design serves a specific purpose, forming a connection and relationship, as award-winning designer Gonzalo Alatorre says, “between object, business, and consumer.” A good designer can solve complex problems and create a wealth of opportunities with direct, measurable impact on a business’ bottom line.

Meanwhile, a $500 website that doesn’t generate business and merely shows up on sites like www.webpagesthatsuck.com will only hurt a brand and business.

Good Design Gains Importance With Information Overload

More than 75% of North Americans are using the Internet, and more consumers are seeking products and services, and spending more money online. As a result, businesses are swiftly transferring their marketing dollars online, and delivering more content to consumers at an explosive, unprecedented rate. As people are bombarded with information overload, and have limited time to observe, orient, decide and act, they may increasingly rely on instinct and intuition.

Living in a world where we assume the quality of a decision has direct relation to the time and effort that went into making it, it can be difficult to trust our primitive ‘gut feelings’. But consider the fact that we don’t need to understand mass x velocity to leap out of the way of an oncoming car. It just “feels right” and ultimately results in a decision with an optimal outcome. The old adage that you should always trust your instincts is supported by scientific studies.

Dr. Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with brief glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal. Even though the images flashed up for just 50 milliseconds, roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television footage, their verdicts matched judgements made after a longer period of examination.

German social psychologist Dr. Gerd Gigerenzer, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, conducts breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking. Based on his research, he told the New York Times: “When a person relies on their gut feelings and uses the instinctual rule of thumb ‘go with your first best feeling and ignore everything else’, it can permit them to outperform the most complex calculations.”

In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about a marble statue from the sixth century BC, which was bought by a California museum for $10 million following a 14-month investigation with an electron microscope, electron microprobe, mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray fluorescence. The point is that they had top industry authorities use all sorts of high tech equipment to confirm the statue’s authenticity.

However, the were a few observers who — in a single glance — felt an “intuitive repulsion.” They felt the statue was a fake. And they were right. Letters used to trace the statue’s history were found to be phony, and the statue didn’t come from ancient Greece. It came from a forger’s shop in Rome in the early 1980s, when mullets, the Rubix Cube, and Madonna were ‘in’.

Blink also documents a study where psychologist Nalini Ambady gave students three 10-second videotapes of a teacher with the sound turned off. The students had no difficulty coming up with a rating of the teacher’s effectiveness. Then the clips were cut back to five seconds. The ratings were the same. The ratings were remarkably consistent when students were showed just two seconds of videotape. Then Ambady compared those snap judgments of teacher effectiveness with evaluations of those same professors made by their students after a full semester of classes, and she found they were also essentially the same.

Gladwell noted: “A person watching a silent two-second video clip of a teacher he or she has never met will reach conclusions about how good that teacher is that are very similar to those of a student who has sat in the teacher’s class for an entire semester.”

Designers Can Be a Copywriter’s Best Friend

With design forming first impressions before visitors even have a chance to process headlines and body copy, designers can make copywriters’ jobs awfully hard, or easy. Poor design can put visitors into a negative mindset, which sets the stage for a grueling uphill, nearly impossible battle for the web copy.

On the contrary, good design, explained Dr. Lindgaard, can prime visitors for a sale, and make them more lenient and forgiving. Reflecting on the study, she said, “The strong impact of the visual appeal of the site seemed to draw attention away from usability problems. This suggests that aesthetics, or visual appeal, factors may be detected first and that these could influence how users judge subsequent experience.” She added, “Even if a website is highly usable and provides very useful information presented in a logical arrangement, this may fail to impress a user whose first impression of the site was negative.”

Therefore, it’s wise for web copywriters and other web specialists who take their craft seriously to partner with high-caliber, experienced designers. Professional designers have the know-how and skills to set the right tone to help websites gain credibility and trust, and achieve desired objectives, goals and conversion rates.

While many people say “content is king” on the Web, Webcopyplus has politely turned down several prospects whose website design was so dismal, no web copy — regardless how optimized and engaging it might be — would be able to produce the desired value, results and ROI.

Just last week, we told a business owner of a moving company start-up to “invest in a professional designer.” The flaw-filled website comprised a long lineup of trucks, each with a company logo amateurishly Photoshopped on its side. The image was clearly fake, even to the untrained eye. If visitors feel they’re being misled, why would they trust the business behind the website?

Good Design Produces Happy Visitors and Healthy Businesses

Designers are at the core of the Internet’s abruptly advancing speed, sophistication and reach. Good designers can make websites aesthetically enticing, and so much more. They can make them findable, usable, distinct, helpful, productive and profitable.

As Thomas Watson of IBM said in the 1950s: “Good design is good business.”

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Award-winning designer Gonzalo Alatorre, speaking at a TED conference in Mexico last month, suggested design needs to be like a quesadilla. Where was the Founder and Principal of Creative Engine, and designer of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics logo going with this? We spoke to the Alatorre to uncover his motivation for making such a seemingly bizarre claim.

In your TED talk, you began by summarizing the history of design.  You said that it was born as one of the specializations in the division of labour during the industrial revolution, and that it was originally thought of as art.  How has the definition of design changed since then?

In my talk, I argue that design actually is not art at all, but that the designers were originally thought of as artists because they drew concepts.  As design evolved, however, it became less about being artistic and more about creating a way to differentiate between similar products on the market, and make some stand out over others.

At that time, production greatly influenced design, because there were so many technological limitations that had to be accounted for.  For example, furniture design adapted to the newly discovered ability to bend metallic tube in the 1920s.  Bauhaus students took this new development and built their design around the ways the tube could be manipulated into furniture, and the Bauhaus style was born.

Then, in the 1980s, a design revolution occurred that had significance similar to the invention of photography — the invention of the personal computer.  While photography forever changed the way we documented history, taking the role away from painters and sculptors, the personal computer forever changed the design process by speeding up production.  Therefore, the saved production time could be repurposed onto the creative side, and made room for more strategic design.  So, design shifted from being artisanal to more efficient and defined.

This history leads to the main point of my TED talk — that the inclusion of strategic thinking in design in the extended creative process, and the lack of limitations on the production side, have turned design into an essential part of any business plan.

You then go on to describe the way that design exists today between the object, the business and the consumer.  Can you clarify that relationship?

Without production limitations, and a very quick technological change, design considers the relationship between object, business and consumer.  For example, the design of an object must consider the production process that will be required, the role that the object will play in satisfying or creating a consumer demand, and the way the object will benefit the world as a whole, by improving upon previous design work.  This also supports the argument that design is not art because art merely exists as itself, while design serves a specific purpose — to satisfy a necessity and improve the world around us.

Another thing that supports this point is that design should never be considered a noun — it is always a verb.  For example, the hammer is not a design — it’s an object that we’ve been working to perfect for 2.6 million years, and counting.  This is not art, but part of our collective effort to improve the things in our lives.

So, how does all of this support your argument to approach design like a quesadilla?

All of this led up to the idea that design is the essential back bone of any business plan because it considers all the elements needed to create a product that serves a purpose and improves our quality of life, not as an art form, and not under any production limitations.

Based on this, I outlined the five characteristics of good design in my TED talk.  These are:

1. Design needs to challenge and propose. For example, the architect Calatrava’s building in Malmo, Sweden is modeled after a twisting spine, completely dismissing the straight lines of traditional architecture, forcing all that see the building to challenge their own conceptions of architecture.
2. Design needs to captivate on an emotional level. For instance, the well-known ‘I heart NY’ logo evokes a certain emotion in everyone about his or her memories or perception of that city.
3. Design needs to be invisible. When design is done well, we see the object as the sum of its parts, and experience it as a whole.  For example, the wonder of the Eiffel Tower distracts us from its actual structural elements.
4. Design needs to be accessible and sustainable. Whatever the definition of these two words you choose — accessibility in terms of physical access to something, or it’s affordability, for example — good design must incorporate all of them.  A good example of this is the iPad, which my three-year-old son picked up and learned how to use in no time, not to mention its financially accessible price of $500, much lower than the average personal computer.
5. Design needs to express a relationship with the consumer. For this, I will tell you the quesadilla story.

My wife and I were having dinner in a critically acclaimed restaurant in Mexico.  To start our meal, we were served a complimentary amuse bouche, which consisted of a liquid quesadilla!  We were shocked when it arrived at our table, but once we tried it, we were convinced that it was the best quesadilla we had ever had.  The flavours were amazing.  It had the perfect corn texture, and a perfect epazote foam centre.

The liquid quesadilla was the perfect example of good design because:

1. It challenged our views of what a traditional quesadilla should be and proposed the question: “Why does it have to be traditional, when this version tastes this good, if not better?”
2. It captivated us emotionally. We all loved it.
3. It became invisible. We stopped paying attention to its strange liquid form when our other senses took over.
4. It was accessible and sustainable. It was produced cheaply enough that it could be offered to us for free.
5. It was a tool to express the restaurant’s relationship with its customers. We all became instant fans of the restaurant, and everyone we know who has tried it looks forward to returning.  Also, it was a conversation starter about the restaurant itself.

There you have it — the reasons why design needs to be like a quesadilla, in order to fulfill its modern duties as a method for enhancing the relationship between business, object, and consumer, and for improving our overall way of life by opening our eyes to new possibilities.