The dilemma of the right brained person (who has a functioning left brain)

I’m an odd mix of techy, geeky, & artsy/creative. My left and right brain halves talk to each frequently and enjoy each other’s company through out the day. I have significant academic and professional training and experience in the creative realms. I also have ten years in marketing with my last position in that field as National Marketing Director for a large Atlanta based corporation.

However I find my self at loggerheads, for example, with how most people [who ask for my help] view their web development projects.

What I am saying is that more often than not, I find that clients tend to be heavily oriented toward either the content or visual side of their website. For example some churches only want boring lists of members, lists of events, a notice that heart healthy chicken will be served on Wednesday night, lists of service times, on and on. However another wants Flash animation and lots of multi-media/video and audio to, as they perceive it, draw a younger audience. But good web design today dictates that each form of digital communication have their part. It’s really not an either/or situation. Read on.

For example I am wired to look at most business/organizational web development projects simultaneously from BOTH a creative AND content angle. It needs to look good but it must have substance at the same time. They call it balance.

In other words, it does no good to have a visual/sensory Flash-feast if it takes forever to load (even with a broadband connection). However, on the other hand, you can have the most pertinent, focused, well written, thought provoking content, but if it isn’t presented in a visually provacotive manner people will click out. This has been proven .

The Stanford University Captology Lab has performed extensive analysis of what draws people to one website over another: Why some work and others don’t.

The highly esteemed Consumer’s Report (see the article) highlighted Stanford’s research in this article. But more importantly here is a quote from the Stanford research as quoted in the Consumers Report article regarding visual importance and web design:

“The data showed that the average consumer paid far more attention to the superficial aspects of a site, such as visual cues, than to its content. For example, nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes.”

So what’s the point? That old adage I heard in my first college economics classes [on the topic of business models], “To thine own self be true”, is good advice for the bi-brained like me.

In the end, I will do what is best for the client, church, organization. That’s a worthy goal I think.

Here is a short video clip from Daniel Pink (the screenshot image of his book links to Dan’s website) that makes good points on how creative people should approach their projects: