Research proves attractive things work better.
According to a 2002 study, the “appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size, and color schemes,” is the number one factor we use to evaluate a website’s credibility.
– In Defense of Eye Candy by Stephen P. Anderson (A List Apart)
Most people I deal with fall into two categories when it comes to design. There’s the “I’m a designer” group and the “Design is the afterthought” group; neither of which I handle all that well. Form and function have to coexist.
If you sell widgets, you know your widgets. I don’t profess to know your widgets better than you. Likewise, I know what I’m doing. My goal is not to make your website be the best website you have ever seen on your computer. My goal is to use design, content and functionality to make it the best possible experience for your clients as a greater whole.
My pitch has never been “my job is to make you look prettier,” nor has it ever been “my job is to give you more functionality.” My job is to make you look better. Fortunately for me, articles like the above and the research it references are slowly making it easier to prove to clients the need for well thought out plan of attack and hopefully refute the responses of “my wife likes brown and purple.”