The polished turd*. Architecture Firm websites.
I’ve been meaning to write a similar post to this, though The Guardian beat me to it.
A question. With services such as Flickr, Wordpress, and Blogspot that have a common language and format that most semi-literate internet users understand and can edit, do we need convoluted, hard-to-navigate flash(y) website design at all?
Flash sites can still be done well, though take the Guardian’s list of Architecture websites as examples (though I disagree with their take on Heneghan Peng). These sites as well as others include unnecessary introductions made up of flashing colours, lines that move and a small “skip intro” button that is hit more times than any other button on the site. We also have animation that chews time and, by the time it has loaded, the user ends up frustrated and moves on with haste. The content takes second place against the polished turd*.
A few points to think about;
- Is Flash still applicable? Flash was good for a time. Tertiary institutions caught on, and now a world-wide army of Flash users grace web-development offices.
- Is a website always a work in progress? A web design agency will have a list of recurring clients. It may not remain in the best interest of the client to allocate resources to a website’s user interface. So we find that many Architectural websites, especially those of Perth offices represent a past condition where a past web language and workflow was applied to a site. People use the Internet differently, so I can only assume that numbers loading on a screen in a light Georgian font for over 30 seconds isn’t going to help.
- A website is a firm’s way of saying this is how we want to be portrayed. It says that you might not see us like this, but this is what we endeavour to be. Do Architecture firms take into account how efficiency may be portrayed on a site that loads irrelevant content slowly?
- Do the older director’s of Architecture firms attribute enough money to an ever increasing Internet presence? Would it be justified employing a multi-skilled graduate that can stay on top of the website as well as their quota of Architect work?
- Do firms need websites? A comprehensible web presence is that of other’s praise or criticism (or abuse in some cases). I’ve googled Herzog and De Meuron numerous times. You’ll get a string of queries that are from the mainstream press and random blog sites with a Wikipedia entry at the top.
- Is it essential to re-invent the wheel?
Below is a small list of simple, easy to navigate websites for firms.
www.oma.eu - If only every Architecture firm had an AMO to help.
drew heath - Easy to navigate, good content, great loading times.
minifie nixon - Appears to be based on a simple, php-based content management system.
Websites are ever changing. More importantly, so is the online environment and the skill of the user. Bigger Internet institutions such as Wordpress have grasped the current climate well and given the user enough flexibility within the blogging template to create most configurations of web content with a basic knowledge of CSS. Couple this with a Flickr and You Tube account you can cut out the need for a domain at all. Pre-Web 2.0, hard to navigate, flash based, ephemeral web design needs to be addressed.
