As I do consulting work for our clients, I often hear stories of good intentions gone awry. What was going to be a great web experience devolved into a design free form that met the whimsy of well meaning, but design challenged staff.

When a web strategy is created and the user experience is fashioned, the expectation is that a type of online governance will help keep the experience within the margins of its strategic intent.  Instead, what typically happens, when there is no governance or it is ignored (usurped for the repeated exception), a well designed site becomes clumsy and distracting. The focus is lost amid the mire of ever competing elements that are all vying equally for attention. 

Even during an initial discovery/design phase, when the information architecture has been painstakingly fashioned towards organizational goals, there is still a temptation by some stakeholders to request that empty space be filled, but for no tactical reason. This is what I like to call the Christmas tree decorating method of web design.

 Your brand website should be designed as a powerful online business development tool; one that encourages your target audiences to interact with you, performing the online tasks they had in mind and encouraged to pursue the promotional opportunities you present. Understanding this, in your site, white space is often designed and expected to relax the experience, aiding the visual balance and hierarchy so that your most valuable content is seen and consumed.

A similar comparison would be the decorating of commercial Christmas trees—the ones we see in stores. These are for the most part, designed experiences. They often have strong visual balance and hierarchy; even occasionally they contain promotional ornaments that communicate organizational messages.  This designed tree, in a department store, is an expected experience.  You like the open feel of the tree and the soothing balance of the colors.

Alternatively, Christmas trees in our homes are a collective expression of the family’s design desires. This too is an expected experience. In this context we fill every open space with heirloom, collected and home designed ornaments. Free form expression here is desired and fits the context. At home, when we see open space on the tree, there is the attraction to put an ornament there, and since it is in our home for our pleasure, we should feel entitled to follow that impulse.

Websites across the online spectrum are replete with examples of this arbitrary method of web ornamentation. The difference is that a Christmas tree in your home is meant to be a personal expression of your design ability, one bristling—nay overstuffed—with homemade, store bought and hand–me–down ornaments, but company websites are not.

Your organizations’ brand portal is a powerful and influential business instrument. It is necessarily a designed experience that requires focused and skilled production, excellent judgment and a commitment to recognized design wisdom.

To protect against whimsical design changes, publish an internal guide of production standards; guidelines and examples that will help keep the user experience sharp. When you have new design or content theories, use industry tools to test them (like Ektron’s multivariate testing), but stay firm to your design commitment; testing, measuring and iterating the experience regularly.