The perspective problem
One of the most common problems in web projects has nothing to do with code, performance or even design. It is perspective.
A business owner naturally looks at a website from their own point of view. They know the company, the products, the terminology and the story behind everything. They also have personal preferences. They may like a certain colour, want the logo to be bigger or insist that a particular section has to appear first.
That is completely understandable. It is their business.
But the website is usually not being built for them.
It is being built for somebody who may know almost nothing about the company and needs to understand it quickly.
You know too much about your own business
When you work inside a company every day, a lot of things become obvious.
You know what every product is called. You understand the terminology. You know how ordering works, why a certain service is useful and what makes the company different from its competitors.
A new visitor knows none of that.
They might have found the company through Google, an advertisement, social media or a recommendation. The website may be their first real interaction with the business.
And their questions are usually much simpler:
- What does this company actually do?
- Do they offer what I am looking for?
- Can I trust them?
- How much does it cost?
- How do I buy, book, contact or learn more?
If answering those questions requires digging through the website, the problem is not that the customer failed to understand the business. The website failed to explain it.
“I like it” is not a UX argument
Personal preference will always be part of design. There is nothing wrong with liking a certain colour, font, image or visual style. A website should represent the company and its identity.
The problem starts when personal preference becomes the main reason behind a decision.
Some requests appear again and again:
- “Make the logo bigger.”
- “I want this section at the top.”
- “Let's put more text here.”
- “I don't like that button.”
- “Customers should read about our company before seeing the products.”
Instead of asking whether the owner likes something, there is usually a more useful question:
Sometimes the answer to both questions is yes. Perfect.
But when personal preference and usability point in different directions, the customer should usually win.
Your homepage is not a company presentation
Another common mistake is treating the homepage like a presentation about the company.
A long introduction. Company history. A message from the founder. Several paragraphs about values and philosophy.
And somewhere below all of that is the product, service or information the visitor actually came to find.
A company's story can absolutely matter. It can build trust, explain the brand and make the business more memorable.
But first, the visitor needs context.
If I open the website of a company I have never heard of, I should not have to investigate the page to figure out what they sell.
The first part of the website should usually answer the basic question quickly: What can this company do for me?
The best internal name may not be the best website name
Companies naturally develop their own vocabulary. Product names, service names, categories, abbreviations and technical terminology often make perfect sense internally.
The problem is that customers do not necessarily use the same language.
This is something that can occasionally create tension during a web project. A company has spent years calling a product or service by a particular name, and then we suggest using another term on the website.
That suggestion is not meant to criticise the company's terminology or say that their original name is wrong.
Sometimes the reason is much simpler: the data shows that customers are searching for something else.
Keyword research, search behaviour and the phrases people actually type into search engines can reveal a significant difference between the language used inside a company and the language used by its customers.
If customers search for one term while the website exclusively uses another, the technically perfect company terminology can actually make the product harder to discover.
Sometimes that means using an alternative term in a heading, category name or description while keeping the official product name visible as well.
It is a compromise between brand terminology and discoverability.
And when deciding between the two, actual customer behaviour is usually a better argument than personal preference.
Do not reinvent the wheel just because you can
I once worked with a company that had a visually impressive idea for presenting a product.
The product would essentially take over the entire page. Large visuals, animations, transitions and an experience built around presenting that one item.
From a visual perspective, the concept looked genuinely good.
There was only one problem.
It was an online store.
People have spent years learning how online shopping works. They use Amazon, eBay, Alza and countless other e-commerce websites. Without thinking about it, they already understand many of the conventions.
They expect to see the product name. Images. Price. Variants. Availability. Product information. And somewhere nearby, a very obvious way to add the product to a cart.
That familiarity has value.
If we completely replace those patterns with an artistic experience, the result may be more original, but originality is not automatically an improvement.
This does not mean every e-commerce website should look like Amazon.
There is still enormous space for branding, typography, photography, animation and creative layouts. But creativity should usually be built around familiar behaviour instead of replacing it.
If users already understand a pattern, we can use that knowledge rather than forcing them to learn another one.
Sometimes the most user-friendly design decision is also the least revolutionary one.
The logo is important. It is probably not the most important thing.
The logo is one of the easiest examples of the difference between business perspective and customer perspective.
Business owners understandably care about their brand. They may have spent considerable time and money creating it.
So developers and designers regularly hear one particular request:
Sometimes the answer should genuinely be yes.
But the logo is rarely the main reason somebody came to the website.
Once visitors know where they are, they usually need something else: information about a product, a service, a price, a location or the next step.
The same principle applies beyond logos. Something can be very important to the company without needing to dominate the interface.
Visual hierarchy should reflect what helps the visitor move forward.
More information is not always more helpful
Businesses usually want to tell customers everything.
Every advantage. Every feature. Every certification. Every detail about the process. Every reason the company is better than its competition.
The intention makes sense. More information should create more confidence.
But more information can also create more work for the visitor.
When every message is important, nothing feels important.
A page filled with paragraphs, banners, icons, buttons and competing messages can make the actual decision harder instead of easier.
Good web design is therefore often about deciding what not to show yet.
- The homepage does not need to explain the entire company.
- A product card does not need every technical specification.
- The navigation does not need a link to every page.
- Every piece of information does not need to be above the fold.
The goal is to provide the right information at the right moment.
Some things are not optional
Not every discussion about a website is a matter of taste or UX.
Sometimes there are technical, accessibility, privacy or legal requirements that simply have to be respected.
Cookie consent is a good example.
I understand why clients dislike cookie banners. I dislike intrusive cookie banners too. They can cover part of the page, interrupt an otherwise clean design and create another interaction before the visitor even sees the website.
But removing something just because it looks better is not always an option.
In the EU, cookies that are strictly necessary for a service can generally be used without asking for consent. Other cookies, particularly those used for purposes such as advertising and certain forms of tracking, can require consent before they are stored or accessed.
That means the real design problem is not:
It is:
“How do we satisfy the requirement while making the experience as unobtrusive and understandable as possible?”
This became especially noticeable when Google strengthened its consent requirements for traffic from the European Economic Area and Consent Mode v2 became part of many analytics and advertising implementations.
Projects that previously had relatively simple analytics setups suddenly required more careful coordination between the consent management platform, Google tags, analytics and advertising tools.
It created plenty of implementation problems.
But that is part of building websites professionally.
The best solution is usually not to complain about the requirement or hide it from the user. It is to implement it properly and design the unavoidable interaction as well as possible.
The owner and the customer have different goals
The owner may want the website to communicate:
- We are professional.
- We have a long history.
- We offer many things.
- We are different from our competitors.
The customer is more likely to think:
- Do they have what I need?
- Can they solve my problem?
- Can I trust them?
- What will it cost?
- What do I do next?
A good website connects those two perspectives.
It communicates what the company wants people to know in a way that matches what the customer actually wants to find out.
That is where web design becomes more than decoration.
This is not about ignoring the client
There is an opposite extreme that is just as bad: designers and developers acting as if the client should have no opinion because they supposedly “know UX.”
That misses the point.
The business owner often understands the customers, the market and the product much better than the person building the website. That knowledge is incredibly valuable.
The job is not to ignore the client. It is to translate what they know into something that works for the visitor.
Instead of asking only:
“What do you want on the website?”
I think there are better questions:
- What are customers usually looking for?
- What questions do they ask before buying?
- What information regularly causes confusion?
- Why do existing customers choose you?
- What usually makes somebody contact the company?
- What does a potential customer need to know before taking the next step?
Those conversations tend to produce much better websites than simply discussing colours and layouts.
A website should reduce friction
At its core, most business websites exist to make something easier.
Finding information. Understanding a service. Comparing products. Making contact. Requesting a quote. Booking an appointment. Buying something.
Every unnecessary obstacle between the visitor and that goal creates friction.
- A confusing menu creates friction.
- A vague headline creates friction.
- A contact form asking for unnecessary information creates friction.
- A hidden call-to-action creates friction.
- Unfamiliar terminology creates friction.
A website can look excellent and still be a bad website if using it feels like work.
The question I try to ask
There are rarely perfect answers in web design. Two completely different layouts can both work well.
But when deciding between different options, one question is usually more useful than debating personal taste:
Not which one looks more impressive.
Not which one contains more information.
Not which one the business owner personally prefers.
Which one makes the next step clearer?
Changing the perspective from the owner to the visitor usually leads to better questions. And better questions tend to lead to better websites.
Because in the end, a successful website is not the one the owner enjoys looking at the most.
It is the one their customers can actually use.