vangogh's blog

Last week on the Cre8PC blog Kim Krause Berg mentioned two new usability documents released by Larry Constantine. The post led me to one of Larry's older documents entitled Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience: Designing for User Performance, which I have just recently read. The previous link will take you to a page where you can download the PDF.

When Yuri interviewed me one of his questions was in regards to finding clients through forums. I thought I'd expand a little on that question and talk about how to use forums to market yourself and your business.

One of the best ways to market a business has always been to network with others. Many businesses rely on word of mouth advertising to gain new clients and customers in the offline world. Online the same basic idea of networking can also prove valuable to new and existing businesses.

If I mention the word design it's likely to call up images of creative graphics, artistic layouts, and decorative aesthetics. But is that what design is all about? Are all those fanciful wows necessary to have a successful web design?

While design certainly takes aesthetics into account it is just as concerned with the functionality of the thing being designed. From the Wikipedia: