Website designs for the human network
Tools for human network professionals – by Tom Cloyd MS MA LMHC
Done well, websites facilitate human communication in networks. How well they do that depends upon a diverse array of factors, but the central reality driving the Internet is the necessity of our communication with each other. We need to become better at it, and we can.
Designing for a people-first Internet
To be human is to network. Human development, as infants, as children, and as adults, necessarily involves relationships. We do not have humanity except in relation to each other – this is one of the great emerging lessons of human developmental neuropsychology.
The Internet is simply human networking intensified. For most of us, computers don’t compute – they help us communicate. Computers’ greatest service to us may be simply to enable us to network better. The Internet itself is only a communication device – for people. We must design websites keeping this ever in mind.
If your work is about helping people to develop better lives, you are necessarily a human network professional, although you may not have thought of it in that way. Engage the Internet in your work and it becomes more obvious.
Internet involvement can help you work better. Making good use of the Internet can be a vital part of a successful human services1 professional’s approach to their work. When you establish a presence on the Internet, you can do it several ways, but at some point you are likely to use a website of some kind. However, there’s a problem: the Internet is complex, and websites themselves are too often so complex that they become inaccessible as a means of expression by those who might make best use of them.
I work to make websites usable by people who have something to say. I am committed to helping professionals in human services develop and maintain websites they can actually use. Your website can either help or hinder your communication with important people. Well designed and carefully crafted, your website can speak clearly to those you seek to serve, while allowing you great expressive flexibility. I can help you achieve both that clarity and that flexibility.
As a full time psychotherapist with a practice in Washington state, USA, I have an insider’s view of the problems involved in using the Internet to support human services work. You can benefit from that my viewpoint, as well as my technical and communication skills.
A design approach you can live with
I craft websites out of a love for design, for writing, and for the way the Internet can connect people for mutually beneficial purposes. In my own professional psychotherapy practice2, I use the Internet in several ways to support my work and my clients’ progress. You can do this as well. I can help you find ways to make the task both possible and rewarding.
I use a simple design philosophy: less is more. Those who travel light can travel far. I am convinced that that which does not support your purpose and your message does not belong on your website. What remains will be plain, simple, direct, accessible, and powerful. Your meaning will speak clearly. You will be heard. This will work for you, and for those who can benefit from what you have to say.
A critical commitment: to develop a site you can manage
Many people don’t have a website because they don’t understand how to make one without using cookie cutter devices, shortcuts, and services which unacceptably constrain the full expression of their personal vision. This doesn’t have to happen.
The central challenge I take up is to construct a site that carries your message well, AND which you can manage yourself. This is not an easy goal to work for, since web page technology is far from simple. Still, a series of critical decisions, artfully made, can leave you in control of your site. To achieve that is my central goal. I know this goal can be achieved, because I have done it for myself and for others like me.
In designing a website, I seek to do just enough, and not one bit more, to convey your message to your visitors. That is a design choice your website visitors will appreciate, as it will make their experience at your site pleasant, comfortable, and rewarding. It will also work for you as well, as you manage your website in the future.
Key details you will want to know
I don’t take on web design projects unless I find them interesting, valuable to others, and appropriate to my primary goal: to produce a site you can run on your own, with minimal or no outside help.
You can learn more about this work -
READ About having a website, then about Radically Simple Websites, and then about the Development Process by which they are made.
VISIT my Portfolio of website designs.
REVIEW my Services and Prices page.
...And when you’re ready to talk, Contact me.
Notes
1 What exactly is a “human service”? What I have in mind is clinical psychology, psychotherapy, counseling, social work, applied anthropology…. But we don’t really have to stop there, do we? It’s about “people helping people,” most fundamentally. Human service professionals apply knowledge, skill, experience, and intelligence to the solution of other people’s problems.
2 You are invited to visit my professional practice website to learn more of my psychotherapy work.