Web Design is Product Design

Debate is usually an indication of intelligent human pursuit. But not always. 

One issue for design students—this no-brainer, simplest of issues—has ever been kept alive within the inane realm of debate since it first arose. As such, it is an unflattering indictment on those who contest the simple fact that a web designer must craft markup and css.

A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures.

Web design is product design. Drawing a picture of the product is not designing the product. Web design is experience design. Drawing a picture of on-screen content or mechanism behaviors is not designing the experience. The functioning html/css (and sometimes JavaScript) is the design.

Graphic design is often important in web design, but only as one component of web design’s requirements. If you stop at the .psd you’ve stopped well before midpoint in the design. The graphic designer who lacks html/css skill is insufficiently prepared as a web designer. A designer who lacks competence should address that issue rather than seek refuge within embarrassing debate.

How Design Fails

It is my experience that design seldom can do much good for most second– and third–tier companies and organizations. The reason for this is that these sorts of entities almost always fail themselves before they even enlist the services of a designer or a design agency.

More often than not, companies and organizations first need business consulting before they need design – else all the design in the world can do little good for them.

For instance, the following scenarios are pretty much regular fare in our industry:
The client comes to us with an ever expanding list of print collateral they need produced. They don’t seem to understand that so much of it is redundant and they insist on spending 3 times what they should. They prefer a scattershot approach to marketing collateral instead of examining what their specific needs are and planning a targeted program to address those needs.

The client comes to us for a website or a site redesign. Their reason for this need is to “keep up” with their competition; to “look competitive.” They so often fail to first make their business competitive and then reflect that difference with their online presence.

The client comes to us for a website or site redesign in order to better reflect the gravity of their brand. They so often fail to notice that their brand is the problem; that the logo lacks gravity, that their copy writing lacks gravity and direction, that their company culture and client relationships are pure boilerplate.

Now, it is quite understandable that this can happen. After all, it is hard for any of us to grasp just how much we don’t know and to take steps to address those issues. What’s so very disappointing though is that when these kinds of oversights and deficiencies are pointed out, they’re almost always dismissed by the client as irrelevant.

In such cases, there is a high probability that the client will end up being unsatisfied with the agency and its work. After all, design cannot produce excellent results when it is being poorly employed. Design should never be the first step in dressing up or “fixing” a business or an organization.

Excellent design coupled with sound business strategy works. One without the other almost never does. But it’s too bad design so often takes the wrap for this failure.

Digital Marketing – A Primer

Digital Marketing nowadays is a major component for Marketing of any Product, Service or Brand. Why Digital Marketing is taking precedence over traditional way of doing marketing is that it’s so fast & quick that it happens on a click of button with very minimal cost & efforts. If not handled properly, it could make or break any Person, Group or an Organization in less than 24 hours. Digital Marketing is nothing but Internet Marketing. Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Social Media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc) are components of Digital Marketing.


Digital Marketing is a field which is not restricted only to Sales & Marketing Professionals but now it’s mandatory that each & everyone, whether a Business owner, a Working Professional, Politician, Bureaucrats, Film Star or even Sportsperson’s can’t survive in coming years if they will not have knowledge or habit of using Digital Marketing.

According to Wikipedia, is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc. It can be defined as promoting of brands or products and services using all forms of digital advertising. Digital marketing uses Television, Radio, Internet, mobile and any form of digital media to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

A Primer of the term of digital marketing:

What is Digital Marketing - Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cell phones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

What is Social Media - Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media is a term used to collectively describe a set of tools that foster interaction, discussion and community, allowing people to build relationships and share information.

What is Search Engine Optimization - SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines. SEO covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.

Why Digital Marketing – With the increased amount of social media platforms, many companies are taking advantage of digital marketing strategies to promote and market their products and services. Since the Internet allows us to communicate instantaneously, launching a digital marketing campaign can take place more quickly than traditional marketing campaigns and are sometimes less expensive. The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that it’s immediate, thus you can monitor feedback, input and actions in real-time from your target market.

Methods of Digital Marketing & Social Media Use- This type of marketing enforcement or implementation is very integrated as various platforms can be utilized at once in promoting products or services. One can use websites, PPC ads, mobile apps, mobile websites, SMS, instant messaging, email among others to effectively communicate messages to his or her target audience. This mode of marketing is not only interactive but also very cost effective.

Email marketing - Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

Blog & Directory Submission - A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific categories and subcategories. A directory's servers provide relevant lists of registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance. However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm.

Google Analytic - Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyse a website's performance or the success of an Internet marketing campaign.

Meta Tagging - Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a page's content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance to description tags in lieu of actual page content.

Pull Digital Marketing – It is a method of advertising companies use to try and get consumers to find the company on their own. The idea is that people will find your company because your company was able to build a successful brand. This would mean that a company has offered a valuable product and created enough social media visibility to become something that a person wants all on his/her own.

Push Digital Marketing - is an approach that tries to put advertisements in front of someone who does not necessarily have any knowledge of your company. Push marketing strategies could involve cold calling, advertising banners, or generating referrals. They are designed to get others to really promote the company and “push” the idea that your company is something of value.

Google AdSense - Google AdSense is a paid service offered by Google that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site content, Query relevancy, ad "quality scores," and other factors.

Google AdWords - Google AdWords is a paid and often expensive Keyword Submission program that determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses. Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.

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Apart from using many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, digital marketing extends beyond this by including other channels that do not require the use of the Internet. Due to non-dependence on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole lot of elements such as mobile phones or cell phones, display / banner ads, sms /mms, digital outdoor, and many more.

Digital marketing is now being enlarged in vast areas to support the "servicing" and "engagement" of customers.