Uh-oh: here comes the c-word…

You’ve just gone through the hardest work weeks for some time, built your new web site and here you are, days away from go-live, the pressure building and your web developer suddenly c-bombs you.

“Where’s the content?”

“I thought you were writing it,” you reply.

“No; we build the site and make it work. You provide the content.”

The most sophisticated means of communication this civilisation – and your company – has ever seen is now thrown into panic and turmoil by this exchange.

How and why has this happened?

Mostly it is because you and your developer have become so wrapped up in colours, apps, toys, functions and incomprehensible technology that you both forgot the content. Content mostly comprises stuff you forgot: the words, pictures and videos. Everything people want to read and see on your site, in fact.

Graphic and web designers are wonderful people.

Coders and developers are equally magical.

But their imaginative brilliance and technical genius invariably loses sight of the key user interface fact: that we mortals need words and images. Why? Because they make sense.

Words and images, moreover, that are clear, crisp, engaging, relevant and current.

Words and images that tell stories, the intent of which is to charm customers into action.

And words that are true.

That is how to stop the conversation disintegrating and being punctuated with vile and vulgar expletives.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 4 May