You know them don't you. They open the meeting by saying "We need something different for our site. I've drafted something in powerpoint and need you to put it up". After asking a couple of questions you realise that this person is wedded to their new website design and it has become their life's work to publish it on your company's intranet.
You make some comments about user centred design, design standards, usability testing and then having debated the pros and cons they land their killer argument as to why none of these apply to their design "I have used hundreds of websites and I know what makes a good one".
Aaargh! This drives me crackers. Over the years I've listened to many songs by Paul McCartney, I know none of them have more than 4 chords, (how hard can it be?) and yet I'm pretty sure I'll never write a song as good as a Beatles classic.
If things go badly you meekly counter with some mumbling about how the content management system can't handle that layout and blame the IT people.
You can avoid this situation though. Get together some successful publishers in your organisation. Jointly develop some design guidelines and principles. Make them as open as possible and use some of the latest research to support it. Create an approval governance for non-standard designs.
Give people reasons to follow your guidelines (DDA compliance, Search engine friendliness - everyone wants their page high up in the rankings, Browser compatibility, etc.)
Get your governance to support it.
What are your best tips for getting new sites to integrate with your design?
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