I’m very sure all of you know what are templates or sometimes refer to as skins or the normal term; design. With that said, how many of you have seen websites with the same design used? Plagiarism or copycat? Well, though that might be true but some are free or commercial templates sold by template providers. One of the more known providers is TemplateMonster.
Housing more than a thousand templates selling at an average price and a unique price. Difference?
Unique price basically is buying the rights for that template so no one else would have it. And the difference in price? Well, we’re looking at paying a mere USD50 at an average and reaching USD2000+ for the unique price. There are cheaper options but reasons being they might be an average design or doesn’t have some useless Flash in it.
Alright, so you’re tight on a budget and you can’t afford hiring a company to develop your website. What do you do? Well, most people who know about template providers wouldn’t think much and just purchase one. The seling of the templates are half the time exactly what clients want. But what do they want? Many times I’ve heard from designers that this is what the client demands;
I want something new and fresh. I don’t want something boring like what I have now.
This is a typical client that does NOT know what he/she/they want. The only thing they’d know is, “I want something pretty.. something pretty.. and pretty inside.” Most clients just want aesthetic appearance and get away half the time by bullying freelancers. Just because the client is the one feeding the freelancer, they think they have all the authority to not listen and change every single thing the freelancer might have planned for the client in improving their website.
I’ll probably blog about the weaknesses of a freelance web designer later to give an idea of the hardships we face and how some are coping with that world today. In the meantime, can anyone guess what is the biggest difference or flaw, ready made templates owners put themselves in?
…..
If you answered usability, that is correct. If you couldn’t find an answer, read on and find out the most important factor lacking in ready made templates. It’s safe to say that most ready made templates have this flaw. Since every template is designed to be aesthetically arousing and make visitors go “Wow!”, visitors would then go “Crap!” if they can’t navigate the website properly or find things efficiently. Most visitors won’t admit if they can’t navigate the website well enough, especially us; Malaysians. We’re worried it’ll hurt the creators feelings or cause a “you said that so you better watch yourself..” scenario.
Ladies and gentleman, this is what ready made templates can do to you and your website. It doesn’t create a visual problem but a problem for your visitors or even worst, your customers. Example; I’m a customer wanting to buy clothes, on the website I see big attractive buttons directing me to best buys and etc. On top I see the same navigation but smaller buttons. Then at the bottom bar I see a link to their catalogue. There’s redundancy and confusion for you when using ready made templates.
Some ready made templates are getting better but really, for a starting price at RM500 or sometimes less, a custom made template would go a long way for a company. Not only would look it professional but the template would be designed to achieve the companies website goals; introduce a fresh look, enlighten visitors about the company at first glance, improve the user experience so the visitor would go; “Wow! That’s so convenient and thought about..” and etc. Not to mention also, people who purchase ready made templates and require a developer to implement it, the developer would hate to make any design changes.
If you’ve got anything to add or comment on this, do go right ahead.