As to the content debate, it can be difficult to write content in advance for the same reason that it’s difficult to implement a whole site in advance: both need clear goals and an architecture to structure them. Neither writing nor design on the web do anybody any good unless they are oriented very clearly toward a purpose. But if the goals are set (and written, and agreed to) early in the project, and the information architecture is clear and addresses the goals, I’m not sure there’s a good reason to insist that the copy for every page already be written. It seems quite acceptable, in that situation, to prepare a toolbox of page components, as you suggest, and pages with empty content blocks to the client to set them up the content writing.

You are right that some clients get derailed by the content. We recently had a design meeting that went astray because we paired the wrong cover with a featured publication.

That said, using real content has worked really well for us, especially when we present the content as part of the design. We did a design presentation the other day where we actually presented the news items, how the content would be presented and suggestions for what to put under News. The client loved it and said that we opened their eyes to using News in a more expansive way.

We will also do things like try to make their one-line description of the organization shorter, more to the point, keyword-rich and punchier. Sometimes, the client hates it, usually they love it, even if they end up tweaking later. AND, more importantly, content is part of the discussion, i.e., we show them how a punchy description enhances the overall design and user experience.

Our designers really prefer to insert real copy into their designs so they scour the existing site, we have our Communications Guru write copy, or the Project Manager develops/grabs/edits copy. Yes, there are still times when we use lorem ipsum text in a branding area or description of a featured publication, but we do try to avoid it.

I look forward to hearing more about your adventures with design and content.

What has client reaction been to that? My experience has been that, if the text is even remotely something that might be content, all attention immediately goes to fixing the text, and I can’t get any design feedback at all. Even using lorem ipsum, most of my clients try to read it first, then try to figure out what language it’s in, and what it says. Then I explain its purpose. Then, maybe, we can talk about design.