Credit Union Web Design - What are your options?
For those who don’t know, I have been in web development for about 12 year or so. I still make websites almost daily. In fact, I just set a blog up for a very good friend of mine who will be graduating this year with a degree in Photojournalism. She is now working for a magazine in San Francisco, but needs another creative outlet - I knew that a blog was just the right venue for her. It took less than an hour to get her set up and running.
Her problem was simple compared to what we do with credit unions. Credit unions have unique web site marketing needs and very specific technical needs. Home banking applications, rate editing and display widgets, e-statements, email marketing, behavioral marketing and the list goes on and on. To blog or not to blog is the least of your problems.
This week I came toe to toe with a popular credit union website hosting and application service provider (say THAT 10 times fast). I have had dealings with this company (and 2 or 3 others) in the past. I can’t say that any of my experiences have always been particularly pleasant. I don’t want to beat them up too much - but it’s frustrating! Maybe they see agencies as competition and want to beat me back into submission? Even that theory seems weak since I collaborate with other agencies all the time (here for example) and at conventions we all have a good time and share war stories. There isn’t a lot of animosity between agencies in my experience. So why do they make it so hard to work with them? Maybe in hoarding their “secrets” they can convince credit union marketers that they have some magic website potion. Well I am here to pull the covers off and expose their naked trembling bodies. The emperors wears no pajamas.
Myth #1 - All Agencies outsource their web design to REAL web developers.
I was as stunned as you are to hear this. We were actually accused of this a few years ago. One of these companies told our client that there was no way that we do our own web development. The credit union had a technology department that we worked with launching their website 2 yeas prior. Their IT guy told the new VP that he was 100% sure that we did our own development as he worked with us (me) directly. The new VP didn’t believe either of us and we ended up not doing their new site. The worst part was - the “Web Company” just reused our old code. The just slapped it into a new framework. They even left in my code notations. I just checked and they are still there.
I have been programming for 12 years (I still do it) and developing in Macromedia Flash for 8 years. Kristen is our current webmaster and continues to learn and grow everyday with her website programming. Our other programmer, Dmitry, takes on any of the heavy code and high end stuff thats even over my head (but he doesn’t work work with flash or anything graphical). If you want to know if your agency does their own development - ask them. They shouldn’t lie - its too easy to catch them. Ask to set up a meeting with your IT department. Ask them if they do the work in house or outsource it. Ask them if in an emergency, if its possible to get immediate changes to the site. 90% of text changes are usually able to be done (in an emergency) in less than an hour if they do the work themselves.
Myth #2 - Credit Unions have to host on a secure server
This is not entirely true. Most of the pages on a typical credit union web site (you may notice I am interchanging “web site” and “website” - both are correct) are just text pages. No sensitive information is passed through the pages, so they don’t have to run through an SSL or an encrypted system. Most pages are purely to inform the viewer about products and services so they don’t need to be secure. Some credit unions like to login to home banking from the home page - even this can be done securely through a third party server! (don’t let them tell you it cant).
One year I had a client that was completely frustrated with one of those “Credit Union Web Hosting Companies” and asked if there was another way to set up their site. Well yes, there is. We set up their site with a standard hosting account ($10 a month) and all of their home banking and e-statements were still hosted securely with this other web company. Their online applications were hosted securely through another web ASP (application service provider) company. All of it worked seamlessly. The member never realized that they were moving between 3 hosting accounts - and everything they did was safe and secure. This saved the credit union hundreds of dollars a month in service and hosting fees. It was simple to maintain and edits could be done instantly. The other neat thing is that these web companies limit what you can do on their servers as far as code goes. Not using them allows you to do many very cool things. Can you say “Interactive Video”? I knew you could.
Myth #3 - Credit Union Web Sites are special - and you need a specialist to make one. This is the worst lie of all. Look, you don’t have to use them to design your site. You don’t have to use us either. Any professional web development company can create a wonderful website for you for a variety of prices. What gives me the authority to say so? 12 years of experience and hundreds of websites under my belt. I have designed $500 websites and $500,000 websites (that was a big site!). I approach each one in the exact same fashion. Think of a website as a house. We know all houses have a roof, walls and a sub-floor of some kind. We know you need some bedrooms, a kitchen and some bathrooms. Everything else is aesthetics.
The nice thing about using a company that has experience in creating financial oriented or credit union oriented web sites is that they are more conscious of industry trends. They know to ask if you want logins on the home page. They know to pepper in ethnically diverse or ethno-centric images depending on your membership matrix. They will talk to you about blogs and podcasts and “wikis” and video or member relation applications. So while all websites are pretty much the same, if you use a web development company - prepare to drive the project. A credit union focused agency knows your needs and can take you along for a comfortable ride. Plus there is the benefit of compliance experience. Agencies that know credit unions usually know things about special disclosures and NCUA requirements that are specific to only credit unions.
Myth #4 - Websites are super complicated.
This is kind of true, and yet not. I have a 1966 mustang coupe that I know front to back, top to bottom. I could probably strip it to the frame with my eyes closed. However, my wife wants a new Chevy Tahoe. I looked in the engine and I feel confident that I stand a better chance of performing brain surgery with a butter knife and a bottle of rum than to fix anything in that engine. But i can recite code in my sleep. Does that make me a genius? Yes it does - genius about web sites and maybe kind of smart about marketing too. But it does not make me a genius about everything. Web people should not expect you to hang with them on something they may be a genius at - its not fair.
That being said - the principles behind websites are simple. Give me half an hour and I can teach anyone with basic computer skills to make a simple web site (I have). HTML is a programming language based on old-school WordPerfect mark-up tags. Anyone who used WordPerfect in the 80’s has all the knowledge they need to make a simple website.
If you are talking to a web designer or a web service provider an they start talking quickly and using a bunch of crazy terms, ask them to explain it more clearly. If they refuse to or go right back into techinese, hang up. It is not that complicated. It CAN be explained in simple layman terms. Some folks choose not to use those terms because it makes you dependent on them as experts. Kind of like when the mechanic tells you that he can’t release your car because your Heisenberg compensator has worn through and it will cost $800 to replace. What do you do if you don’t know there is no such thing?
Myth #5 - If you want to edit the site yourself, you have to use a credit union web service provider.
I am about to expose a nasty little secret here - brace yourself. Anyone can make a CMS based website. By the way, CMS stands for Content Management System (or Client Managed System depending who you ask). Google it. CMS applications give you the ability to edit any page of your website using an easy to use interface. You do not need to be a web programmer to make minor changes! We have used them for many sites (shameless plug coming) including a site that we care about alot but is not quite finished yet. It is a charity that we help support. The whole site is backed by a CMS application. It allows multiple logins so the bloggers can post their blogs about the progress of the project, the event coordinator can add events and photos. Everyone can do their part and none of them know a word of HTML.
You will learn part two of the secret - there are a lot of FREE CMS systems that can act as a back end to your credit union website. Yes, FREE! However, you will need a competent development company (like us) to design around the framework to make your site unique. The worst part about the “Credit Union Web Hosting Companies” is that all their sites look the same (at least very similar). Well, at least to me. But who am I?
Note: Since publishing this article we have launched our own CMS Credit Union Web Design product. It is a quick, easy and affordable online marketing tool for credit unions.
Conclusion
There are a lot of options available out there. I kind of beat up on the web service providers. Maybe they don’t deserve it - I don’t know. But what I do know is this: when it comes to web sites - it’s like Burger King, you can have it your way every day!
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Comments
Elaine,
THANK YOU! It’s good to know that I am not alone screaming into the wilderness.
And yes, the migration from print to web is far more difficult than from web to print. When designing for web you have to know the limitations of a table based format. CSS is a great tool and allows a lot of new flexibility, but effective GUI design is such a unique challenge.
I was thinking this post would be too long for anyone to read (with so many typos) - I have to take it easy on the late night postings 
What do you mean by “CSS is a great tool and allows a lot of new flexibility, but effective GUI design is such a unique challenge”?
Reading this leads me to believe that you consider HTML tables as a better option for more complex or creative layouts than CSS.
If this is true, then I very strongly disagree.
Not only does CSS allow for much cleaner, faster and more manageable mark-up than HTML tables (shiver) but you can do way more with layers, transparency and positioning than even remotely possible with tables.
Geof,
That is not what I was saying. Sorry, those were two separate thoughts in one sentence 
We were talking about the challenges of taking print designers and teaching them to be web interface designers. If they start (or did start) with table based design, they need to know the limitations. If they can advance to CSS - excellent, it gives you the flexibility of Quark or InDesign in a web medium. But its is a steeper learning curve.
When I said “Effective GUI design is a unique challenge” I was referring to the way you design for print vs. web and how GUI design is a unique challenge versus a brochure design. In web design you have to deal with far more technical issues like conflicting scripts and layering issues that you would not in print. Also, I like to use as many repeating images to limit page weight as possible as new web designers will cut the same little graphic up 20 different ways using something like Fireworks or Imageready instead of using the more economical repeating images. Then there is the challenge of wrapping text in expanding pages versus fixed width pages.
CSS is my preferred code because of its flexibility with future design revision and expansion, though it does take me longer to code a site in CSS than nested tables using HTML or PHP. I guess it is a matter of taste. I know folks that are as fanatical about CSS as Mac users are about Apple. For me, its all about the right tool for the right job - whatever it takes to do the job correctly is what I will use.
Thanks for your readership
Ah, that makes sense now, and I completely agree.
I’m by no means a web standards zealot (though, embarrassingly, I was about 5 years ago) but I still see the importance of clean, semantic and object-oriented mark-up. W3C validation, well, I can take it or leave it. My interest is rather in the optimal user experience.
I wholly concur about the importance of knowing how to code, what is technically feasible and how people will use the website (web applications are a different story all together). This knowledge takes years to acquire and you can’t learn it from a book.
I’ve worked in several print-dominant agencies over the years and while there were certainly some extremely talented graphic designers within the companies, it’s not just a simple transfer for them. Print to web is very difficult, more than most print designers would care to admit to.
A few semi-connected thoughts….
“It CAN be explained in simple layman terms.” — thank you. Too many web people are IT people who are used to talking over people’s heads, tossing around acronyms. Almost anything can be explained sufficiently if you really think before you speak. I’ve always done web design/development in a marketing department, and I enjoy being able to take a step back from the technical aspect and explain what’s really going on — and what it means.
(Sidenote: because I was blogging early, and started using blog software for CMS-like duties early, I explained the idea to my last boss in 2001 or thereabouts. Which meant that he knew about blogging before the IT people did, and explained it to one of their managers! Which made him look good, and made me proud of my “pupil”.)
As a standards geek, I tend to be wary of designs that come from people or organizations with too much print experience. I’ve been burned by being handed design concepts that were inappropriate…or physically impossible. But I appreciate that you have a lot of pride in your experience & expertise — I feel the same way. Like any vendor, you need to know what your agency, etc., is capable of.
My experience with the whole SSL site thing is that there’s a noisy slice of members who don’t like putting anything sensitive into a form unless they have that visual reassurance. OTOH, you can get a certificate set up with almost any host.
All of which makes me glad that we’re not beholden to some crazy ASP…and that I have six years of experience in higher ed, six years of blogging, and eight years of web design experience altogether to draw on.