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Thursday, January 15, 2004
Brand of Blah?
Marketer and site designer Jim Kukral wonders why usability guru Jakob Nielsen doesn't hire a designer for his functional-but-bland website. The answer is simple: brand.
Some sites hire accomplished designers and architects who can integrate brand feel with usability, persuasion, and smooth sales processes. Others eschew the designers; Google famously did so because, in the words of one co-founder, "we're not designers and I don't do HTML." As the world has noticed, a functional design like Google's can effectively tack on design elements (eg. cute cartoons) after the fact anyway.
So that's Jakob's story. His site is him. It's part of his identity. A Purple Cow. Some webmasters even borrow the design and then credit him with it. Moral of the story: design and brand go hand in hand... even the idea of having a really simple, boring design.
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
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