I would argue that as web designers we spend too much time looking at the wrong kind of problem.

I recently ran a free open door consultancy clinic to celebrate the launch of my new book (yes I know, two shameless plugs in one sentence). This involved various website owners volunteering their sites for review. Both myself and the audience then provided feedback.

What quickly became apparent is that the feedback being given by the audience was biased towards design and development.

Although their comments were excellent it focused almost exclusively on the quality of code, site aesthetics and usability. To address these issues in isolation is similar to treating symptoms and ignoring the underlying illness.

Cure the illness not the symptoms

Poor design, bad usability and terribly written code are symptoms of bigger problems. Often when we endeavour to address these symptoms, we meet resistance from our clients and become frustrated. This is because our clients are still struggling with fundamental concepts we take for granted.

Before we can address issues of aesthetics, usability and code, we need to tackle business objectives, calls to action and user tasks. Without dealing with these fundamental principles our clients’ website will fail.

Understand the business objectives

Do you ask your clients why they have a website? It feels like an obvious question. However, it is surprising how many clients do not have an answer.

Without having a clear idea of the siteʼs business objectives, the client has no way to know whether it is succeeding. This means they have no justification for further investment and that leads to quibbling over every penny.

However most importantly, without clearly defined business aims they have no standard against which to base their decisions. Everything becomes subjective and that will inevitably lead to problems.

Before we start discussing design, usability and development, we need to focus our clients on establishing concrete business objectives. This will provide a framework for decision making during the development phase.

This will not only help the client make decisions, it will also focus them on the business and away from micro managing the design.

Establish clear calls to action

Once business objectives have been set this opens up the possibility to establish clear calls to action.

I am amazed at how few website owners can name their calls to action. However, I am even more staggered at how few web designers ask about them.

Calls to action are not just limited to ecommerce sites. Whether you are asking people to sign up for a newsletter or complete a contact us form, every site should have a desired objective for users.

What is more, each page of a site should have micro calls to action that always draw users on and never leave them at a dead end.

Without clearly defined calls to action you cannot successfully design a site, structure the user experience or measure its success. They bring focus to the site and encourage the client to concentrate their efforts on helping people reach those goals.

Of course in order to know if a call to action is going to work, it is necessary to do some user testing.

Test against the right tasks

As web designers we all like to boast about being ʻuser centricʼ whatever that means! However, in reality I think many of us are paying lip service to the subject.

Sure, we ask our clients about who their users are and maybe even do some usability testing. However, usability testing is no good if we are not asking the right questions.

Again we find ourselves working on a superficial level rather than tackling the deeper issues.

Clients find it relatively easy to tell you who their target audience is. Admittedly the list they come back with is often overly long and contains a lot of edge cases. However, where they begin to struggle is articulating what these users will want to achieve on the website. They know who they want to reach. However, they cannot always tell you why those people would be interested in the site.

These user tasks are another fundamental building block for any successful website. Although it is important for a website owner to understand what their objectives are and what they want users to do, it is even more important that they understand the users objectives as well.

Again, this provides context for the decisions they are making about design, usability and functionality. Without it the site will become self serving, largely ignoring the needs of users.

User tasks help to focus the clientʼs mind on the needs of their user, rather than what they can get out of them.

So am I claiming that design, usability and code do not matter? Well the shocking truth is that to some extent I am!

The shocking truth

Whether we like it or not there is significant evidence that you can create a successful website with bad design, terrible code and without ever running a usability test session.

You only need to look at the design of Craigslist or the code of Amazon to see that this is true.

However, I do not believe it is possible to build a successful website without business objectives, calls to action and a clear idea of user tasks.

Do not misunderstand me. I do believe design, usability and code matters. I just believe that they only matter if the fundamentals are already in place. These things improve a solid foundation but are no use in their own right.

As web designers it is our responsibility to ensure fundamental questions are being asked, before we start exploring other issues. If we do not, our websites will look great, be well coded and have gone through endless usability tests, however it will not be truly successful.

There are a number of websites where you can search for web design jobs… big sites and more popular sites such as Craigslist, Monster, and Career Builder, which I am sure most of you are already familiar with.

On the other hand, just in case you have not noticed it yet, there has also been a trend among web design blogs having their own web design boards to take advantage of the large proportion of readers from the web design community. Thus, it is much easier to spot the specific web design jobs that you are looking for since most of the job postings from these web design job boards are very much targeted.

That is why most of the sites that you will find below are links to the web design jobs boards of blogs. I hope that this will be able to help you find that dream job of yours whether it is full-time work, freelance gigs, or just part-time work.

Behance Joblist

Behance Network’s Joblist includes full time and freelance opportunities for web designers and other creative professionals. These web design jobs are targeted to the thousands of creative professionals visit who visits Behance daily, and many of whom host their portfolios on the Behance Network.

Coroflot

Coroflot’s job board is the largest and most active site on the internet specifically targeted at hiring designers and other creative professionals. Among its clients are Frog Design, Microsoft, Nokia, Landor, RIM, Nike, Intel, Blu Dot, and Sony. Coroflot has grown to host over 1.4 million images of creative work, from the portfolios of over 150,000 creative professionals and students from all over the world. Coroflot users are industrial, graphic, fashion, interior, textile and interaction designers; 3D modeling and rendering specialists; architects, illustrators, art directors, design managers, and dozens of other disciplines.

Smashing Jobs

The Smashing Magazine blog is among the top 20 blogs in the world and has nearly 200,000 subscribers. Since majority of the readers of this blog is from the design community, the jobs you can find here are also highly targeted to web designers and allied professions. It literally features thousands of great jobs for anyone looking for web design jobs and related opportunities.

Freelanceswith Job Board

The jobs that you can find in this site includes web design jobs and web development along with other types of freelance jobs and opportunities. To apply for the job, however, you must first pay a subscription fee of $7 per month.

DesignM.ag Web Design Job Board

The web design jobs that you can find in this site includes full-time work, freelance projects and part-time jobs.Get updated with this site’s web design jobs listing by subscribing to its RSS feed.

37 Signals Job Board

For people looking for web design jobs and other tech projects or work, this site is one of the best places to start.Its many clients include industry leaders such as Apple, The New York Times, CNET, Facebook, Adobe, Trek, and American Express.

Dice

Whether you’re looking for work, worrying about surviving the next round of layoffs, thinking of starting your own business, or starting life as a consultant, Dice does not only list job opportunities but survival tips, resume advice and job-hunting guidance as well that you can put to use right now.

Design Crowd

The jobs that you will find at Designcrowd (formerly Design Bay) are exclusively graphic and web design jobs. The categories of jobs you will find here range from logo design, web design, poster design, illustration and many more.

Mashable Jobs

Boasting a large readership composed of web designers and other tech professionals, the Mashable job board lists web design jobs and other design and tech jobs under different categories like design, development, blogging and marketing.

Authentic Jobs

Authentic Jobs is a targeted destination for web design jobs and other jobs for creative professionals, and the companies seeking to hire them.Since 2005, qualified candidates have been applying for great opportunities at Apple, Comcast, Facebook, frog design, Meetup.com, HBO, HUGE, MSNBC.com, Backcountry.com, Fluidesign, Magnani Caruso Dutton, ESPN, The Motley Fool, Estee Lauder, Turner Sports Interactive, Phinney Bischoff, Garmin, Sony BMG, Electronic Arts, HP, and many other companies large and small.

Jobs on the Wall

A great Web design blog, Web Designer Wall also features a job board offering web design jobs and related projects for designers of all skill levels.

High-end Careers

Find hundreds of jobs in the Video Game, Animation, VFX, and Software/Technology industries. This site hopes to provide Employers with a highly economical, effective tool that streamlines their staffing and recruitment process, and also offer Jobseekers access to job opportunities across multiple creative content industries.

Just Tech Jobs

JustTechJobs.com is Internet.com’s jobsite and part of the WebMediaBrands. It provides Employers with a technology specific focus and provides Job Seekers with job postings aimed at those specific tech jobs. The benefit of using JustTechJobs.com is that it offers a community of 15 million tech professionals supported by 120 tech Web sites.

Fresh Web Jobs

Fresh Web Jobs is a job listing site dedicated to web development and design. It also lists both full time and freelance jobs.

Site Point Marketplace

Site Point has a section called Looking to Hire which features numerous web design jobs and other work for not only web designers but for other tech professionals as well. Job opportunities include web design, SEO, web development, web programming, etc.

Goodluck and i hope you will find this post useful.