Certainly when I am doing a piece of work for a client I do a concept and build a design in photoshop, get it checked by the client as to wether or not the design is in the right direction then decide how best to code it, and yes sometimes tables are the only way to get a piece of work done on a deadline. And if I get time I do like to do CSS and XHTML but if either a) I don’t or b) I don’t want to spend 75% of my time debugging code between browsers then I don’t bother with the hassle.

I’m sorry but those of you who think that doing a website in tables is a hideous thing to do then you need a swift kick up the arse and planted back in the real world.

Content organization & rewriting and optimization and labeling is a huge job… Same with usability. So if the project can support it you want to have specialists at those jobs instead of one person trying to do everything. I think when that happens though people think of the web designer as the person that makes it look good instead of the person (that should be) reponsible for merging the specialities of the ia, usability, coding/scripting etc. into the final product.

As far as that goes, Geoffrey is correct, “the customer *should* always be heard. Before the designer gets to far into his artistic cocoon, he should remember that this is a job and someone has “cornflakes” to sell. Furthermore, I/A and usability are not the natural enemies of design and don’t think that anyone is really saying that. It *does* look as if some designers were feeling that though.

Now, if the site were merely an artistic statement with no product, per se, then the scenario should be different with the balance perhaps falling to the designer. Especially if it’s a designer with a proven track record.
Got to say, Geoffrey’s image of a giant Sharpie still has me smiling.

And what about the direct response industry where ‘ugly sells’? If you’ve seen any of those sites, you will notice that Usability and IA are all but thrown out the window. And it’s intentional, because that approach converts well for them.

Anyway, I was going to make a more substantial comment, but I basically agree with Mark. From my experience, I/A and usability form the basis of the design for most sites. Your I/A and usability ends up driving the high level structure of your navigation and usability, whereas visual designers are there(IMO) to provide a visually appealing (for lack of a better phrase atm)layout that adheres to the creative brief and branding that’s defined early on.

I do basically agree with your points. If requirements are understood correctly by everyone (and you are actually a great designer), the client should have trust your expertise.

That said, I really only try to work with smart clients that understand the importance of the user experience, and using site objectives, business goals in combination with user centered design, etc to form the basis of the design. I’d rather cut scope elsewhere upfront and ensure that the site has a solid, scalable I/A than do work that I feel I couldn’t be proud to display as a part of my portfolio.

Btw, can we all agree to finally kill the term ‘guru’? ;-) My main client at my last job was always referring to me as ‘our main technical support guru’, and it used to drive me nts.

Clients hire designers to be advisors (hopefully) and we should apply a little force to the advice when necessary. Granted, there will always be those times when we are reduced to a giant Sharpie that the client abuses at will, but in general I think we owe the profession a little backbone.

For editorial-focused sites, thesauri, managed vocabularies, taxonomies and the like maybe the IA label applies, but I think interaction design is truer label especially as we have things like xmlhttprequest and traditional software interaction paradigms being implemented via script in the browser. Is mapping interaction patterns and task analysis IA, Usability, or Design? I might be jaded since I’m coming from a traditional software/product design perspective but I definitely consider myself a designer and I do understand common usability issues and heuristics, as every designer should.

If you were talking only about visual or graphic design, I can understand but this entry seems to miss the mark in a huge way. One man’s opinion.

A lot of times you may be hesitant to go with a certain design because you fear the backlash of the community, which some people really do fear, for example if you launched a new site using tables.

That actually humors me, because I just seen a great big debate over someone that did launch a site using tables, and then it turned in to a great big debate about how usability was the important thing if they ever wanted their site to get good rankings.. this clearly isn’t a good attitude.

Yes unfortunately there are some idiots out there, and we still have to take it.. but the public eye and feed back from others will always be vital to growth, after all they’re the ones that spread the good word about how awesome we are and tell joe store owner down the street about a great webdesign.

What does it mean to sacrifice your satisfaction? Don’t we work together with our colleagues and clients? Are we working in a situation which is like a constant battle with our colleagues and our clients? There is no sacrifice. There are goals that must be met and everyone should do their best so that by the end of the day the project accomplishes these goals.