Sitegeist Blog - Beiträge vom August, 2009

Here at Sitegeist, we reckon lorem ipsem is the sworn enemy of good website development, yet it’s ubiquitous.

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.”

Dummy text. Placeholder content. Lorem ipsum has been used since the 16th century. If your business is presenting fonts and typography, you are forgiven. If your website dates back to the 16th century, you’re off the hook too.

For everyone else…

You’re building a website: no small task. The site is going to present you (your brand, your information, your products, your ideas) to the world. Content is critical.

But what happens? The process kicks off and you find yourself looking at designs full of placeholder copy! The stuff of your business has been sidelined. Style has given Substance a little shove.

Later on, you’re trying to make your content (your business) fit in with the design. Does that sound right? You might want to take a sentence or two to describe your business, but there’s only room for 30 characters. Or the main content area is designed using those tiny font sizes designers just love. Or there’s room for 400 words per page, but you only have 150 words to go there. Once the content is in place, the page looks bare.

Pity.

Imagine the alternative. Imagine an approach that puts your business first, and works with your content/product/marketing people and your design people at the same time.

We have.

So is placeholder content ever ok in web development?