Our job as designers is to effectively COMMUNICATE with the user and convey the relevant information in an efficient, effective manner. Sure, that stuff all LOOKS very cool, but it is all UTTERLY self-indulgent: the only people who enjoy it are the designer and the winery owner…for reasons of vanity alone.

Whether we like it or not, the past, current, and future of websites are an area for the SPEEDY gathering of information about a particular product, program, what have you. Users want to get in, get what they need, and get back out. What do your wines cost? Where can I get them? How are they made? Where are they made? How can I use them in and with recipes? How and where do I buy them?

If you do not CLEARLY convey ALL this to your audience within the first five seconds of them arriving at your site…you’ve lost them. They’ll click away and go somewhere else. There are websites that people DO go to in order to waste time at work, recreate, whatever. Winery websites are not them. nobody ever says “hey let’s go to the Bonny Doon website and play some FUN GAMES!!!.”

At least, that’s the title of the article. Notice that the title is not “22 Effective Winery Web Sites,” which would be something altogether different. I was pleased to see that a majority of the sites proiminently featured a bottle……