Web War…What is it good for?

In many cases the job of a web developer is to get a site live and leave its promotion to the marketing department. The gaps between design, development and promotion are all too often the cause of inter-departmental battles with each attempting to mark their territory and fight tooth and nail to deliver on what they feel is priority.

Designers generally seek aesthetic control, looking for the freedom to create a piece of art that will have clients, competitors and peers marvelling at the concept and creativity. If this design goes against development or promotion, the designer will argue that customers will respond better to a website that catches their attention and ignites their imagination.

Developers will seek to provide the best solution on the best platform that requires the least amount of management. They create what they see as a beautifully efficient platform that manages itself and allows users to interact without compromising their hard work. If this approach goes against design or promotion the developer will argue that an efficient website that is architecturally sound will provide cost savings on manpower after release as it will manage itself.

Lastly, Marketers will seek to tear design and development to pieces in their relentless efforts to have the website reach high ranks within the search engines. Nothing is sacred when it comes to an SEO manager’s desire to see the website in first position on Google. If marketing clashes with design or development, the marketer will argue that traffic is key to success and without implementation of their plans, the website will not attract an audience. Design will be compromised, architecture will be altered and the site will be turned on its head to achieve marketing goals.

So we ask: Who’s in the right? Who should we side with?

Well the simple answer is that each aspect is as important as the other. Design cannot work without good development and marketing, development has no value without good design and marketing, marketing is worthless if the site is poorly designed and developed. No one department can take the lead; it has to be a collaborative effort for real success. If you have departments at war the only thing to do is to sit them down and reach a compromise.

The best practice would be to have all departments involved from the beginning of a website build. If one department takes the lead, the others will not be able to deliver to their highest standards.

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