This may be a tough one to swallow...
Users will not work hard to consume our marketing materials
Make the experience confusing, or frustrating, or slow to load, or hard to read — and they're gone. Text too small? *Poof.* Hard to navigate? *Poof.*
Your content might be the most fascinating, persuasive content on the web, but some users will never get to see it, because they're not willing to put in the effort.
For this reason, the guidance of our colleagues who work in user experience (for general usability) and accessibility (for ADA compliance), should be treated as gold. All of their recommendations are focused on making our work easy to engage with for users, and thus successful for our clients.
When we talk about digital best practices, every single guideline is focused these same principles.
For this reason, best practices shouldn't be considered just a suggestion. "This will look cooler/more branded" is not a sufficient reason to break from these guidelines. I know I'm a broken record with focusing on success, but that's what we need to calibrate our brains for, in order to do our best work for our clients.
Digital best practices are more than just a suggestion. They're the rules for digital design.
Another way to look at it
Each time we choose not to follow best practices, we sacrifice a bit of engagement.
Our clients want that engagement. Obviously! And it's our job to know how to give it to them. This means understanding, embracing, and advocating for digital best practices.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.