Pains of a Web Designer

I have been designing and developing websites for nearly 8 years now. I did it since i was 2nd year in college, and I was part of the school's in house Internet Service Provider. Its a fun job, creating "artworks" that can be accessed anywhere in the globe (ok so -anywhere in the globe- is actually just a figure of speach, you need to have internet access and something that you can use to browse the internet).

But it is such a pain.

Most people, clients, dont understand that for a website to be effective, preparations has to be made. It takes a lot of thinking to develop a site, it takes a lot of time as well. And even more time will be consumed without proper planning. The ideal phase of a website can be summed up in 3 parts. Planning and Documentation, Design, and then Development. Let's just take Quality Testing as part of the final stages of the Development of the website.

Planning and Documentation although tedious, and most often considered 'boring' and 'skippable' is vital for the next 2 stages to be running smoothly.

This part takes the hit of most of my design experience. Clients often say 'do some mockups first and lets just tidy up the contents later'. I then hastily do the design. They say 'Wow' then i build the site. Slowly, they will say, "Hmm.. it lacks box 1 (box 1 being an imaginary component, which takes up the a page's real estate)". I add box 1. A few visits later, another imaginary component is needed to be up in the website, and then I add it again.

Until my website looks nothing like the approved mockup, but a franken-site. A patch of so many things that we didnt "thought" was needed before.

I think i have made about a hundred of this franken-sites before. And more to come. Sadly, these kind of sites get revamped quite easily as they dont have the essence of a good site. Pleasing to the eye, and easy to use. Considering that it is functional at all.

I felt really down this afternoon. As I am about to build another franken-site.