Readers from America might recognise the title of this muse. The Declaration of Independence prefaces
the Statement of Human Rights with the phrase: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident'.
Hmmm, bit of a leap - Declaration of Independence to Internet marketing, so why is it here?
Well ... the phrase reflects my philosophy on website design. To me, much of what a website
should be is blindingly obvious - that is, self-evident. Web pages should
download quickly, for example. Or that surfers don't like having to download software in order to use a site.
Or that the website should have the objective of meeting the needs of the user, not the designer.
Sadly for the industry
[but gladly for some practitioners, consultants and academics who get paid to put them right]
many cannot, or will not -
see the blindingly obvious. Instead they recognize only what they perceive as the obvious.
Unfortunately for them - and the publishers of any websites they are involved in - they should be looking at
what the user [read, customer] thinks is obvious.
But then if you've read any of my other stuff, you will already have realized that 'we hold these truths to be
self-evident' is not a million miles from '
when you are inside the bottle, you can't read the label'.
