Today, I said no to a $10,000 project.

A project where the team probably would have done whatever I said they should do. A project where I likely would have had complete control over the design. A project I believe would have resulted in a very good solution for a valuable service.

So why did I turn it down?

Getting information out of my contact at the company was … painful. Mind you, I didn’t seek out this client—he came to me. Yet every email was replied to with far fewer details than were asked for. When we spoke on the phone, I had to ask question after question to get even the most basic facts. Nothing was volunteered. There was no excitement in his voice when he talked about this new venture that would inevitably take over his life for many months to come. There was no passion. It was all very … matter of fact.

Despite this, I’m sure I could have done some good work and played an important role in creating what would surely become a valuable resource for a lot of people. And hey, who couldn’t use another $10,000?

But then I remembered something.

People without passion don’t succeed. Not in this business.

Even if I had delivered a good solution, and even if I had guided them every step of the way, I fully believe this effort would have been wasted on a project that will never get off the ground. Will never succeed.

And with that thought, the possibility of taking on the project disappeared.

Odds are that if you’re reading this blog, you do something pretty well (or would like to). Whatever that something is, don’t do it for no good reason. Do it because it matters. Do it because it makes a difference.

If it doesn’t, stop doing it.

I may have said No to $10,000 today, but I said Yes to something far more important. I said Yes to my reason for being a designer in the first place.

Today wasn’t the first time I’ve turned down $10,000. It almost certainly won’t be the last. But if I stick to what I believe in—what I care about—I’ll most certainly make up for it doing something that matters.

CEOs are people, too. Sometimes they forget. Sometimes they think that, because everyone looks to them for answers, that they must indeed have all the answers.

I once worked in a company that had a whole Documentation team, chock full of great and talented people. And they developed a comprehensive set of smart and carefully-chosen standards in an effort to maintain consistency across a large portfolio of applications.

The CEO, however, arbitrarily decided that all OK/Cancel button sets should be labeled … “OK” and “Cancel”. And the buttons should be identical to each other. (Naturally, I disagree.)

Didn’t matter what a page or task flow was supposed to do, or what “OK” meant in one case, or what “Cancel” meant in another. All that mattered was that he had a definitive answer on how they should be labeled.

So, this team spent all their time crafting wonderful and informative Help documentation to answer questions about how to use the features within the application. But if the button labels had been more meaningful, the articles could have been shorter. They could have been needed by fewer people.

In other words, the CEO was paying the Documentation team to help users work around his bad decisions.

You can have a team of 100 great copywriters, but if you also have a “Control Freak in Charge” (CFIC), it won’t make an iota of difference. First, you have to sell the CFIC on intelligent decisions. And that can be tricky business.

So, how do you talk a CFIC out of a bad idea and into a good one?

I get this question a lot. Share your stories. Let’s help each other.

Web design is like theater (which I guess means it’s not really like fashion design). But not enough people think of it this way.

Sometimes it takes a lot of people to launch a theatrical production, sometimes just one. Sometimes there are riggers, and sound crew, and set builders, and lighting crew. Sometimes there’s a different person for every job. And sometimes a single person writes, directs, stages, and stars in her own production. Sometimes it costs a boatload of cash. Sometimes it’s a one-man show in the neighborhood bar.

Replace all the job titles in the previous paragraph with titles from web design. The end result is the same.

When the curtain is drawn, all the audience members see is what they’re capable of seeing. They don’t know what went into creating it. Or what technologies were used, or how many people it took, or the lingo thrown around by the crew. They don’t know how much money was spent, or what deadlines were met or missed.

They don’t need to know any more than what they see. And they shouldn’t have to learn about it.

When watching a show, the audience members only know what’s in front of them. They see the story as it unfolds. They see smooth execution. Lines rehearsed and delivered in a way that evokes emotion, empathy, drama, comedy.

When using a site or application, all they know is what’s on the screen. All they know is what we tell them. They see buttons and labels and forms and links and words and images. And they see a story unfold.

They don’t need to know any more than what they see. And they shouldn’t have to learn about it.

Doesn’t matter if you have a team of 100 or you’re a single developer cranking out code in your mother’s basement.

When the curtain is drawn, the only thing your users should have to know is exactly what they need to know.

If they have to memorize the names of the riggers and sound crew, you’ve failed.

Have you ever wondered how the Web teams behind the most popular sites get so many people to sign up for their products and services? After all, there are boatloads of great applications out there. How does someone choose one over another?

To answer this question, I wrote 5 posts for the Peachpit Commons blog, all of which were posted last week, about the 5 elements of great signup experiences.

(You can probably get through the whole series in 20 minutes, so don’t worry about losing your afternoon.)

Read them here:

• Part 1: the value proposition
• Part 2: the investment breakdown
• Part 3: the call to action
• Part 4: the blank slate
• Part 5: the signup form

Twice recently, a client has said to me, “We get [insert big number here] hits per day. We want to double that number.” So twice recently I’ve had to help a client figure out his real goal.

First, a “hit” is any file that is requested from your web server. If you really want to double your hits, well, then double the number of files needed to render your site pages. Split your Javascripts into multiple files, load an XML file or two, split your logo into four pieces, and voila! Twice as many hits.

Now, if you mean that you want to double the number of visitors, well, then you need to raise awareness. Get a good marketing and social media strategy in place and let the good times roll. I can help you achieve a good design (which is, of course, vitally important), but design alone will not double your visits.

If you mean you want to double the average number of page views per visitor, well, then increase the number of pages it takes to complete each task on the site. Easy enough.

Of course, if what you really mean is that you want to make the site a whole lot more valuable, thereby increasing your chances of getting a lot more users, well, that’s a different story.

In that case, the goal may not be to increase average page views per session. It might be to decrease them. Google, for example, succeeds by getting you through a search task with as few clicks and pages as possible. The New York Times drives you straight to the biggest stories by putting them one-click away from the homepage (decreasing page views), but once you’re there, the goal is to get you to look through more stories (increasing page views).

Sometimes a low number of page views per session means people are having trouble finding what they need. Sometimes it means they’re finding exactly what they need very quickly and leaving without looking around the rest of the site. Sometimes it means they’re not interested in the site in the first place. Sometimes it means that 5 pages are incredibly interesting, and the other 95 are fluff.

If your site is a web application, the number of page views might be completely irrelevant because 50% of the actions on the site are performed on a single screen. In that case, information on individual files and data requests and click patterns will be more meaningful.

When you pour through whatever stats-tracking tool you’re using, don’t focus on a single number. They’re all part of a much bigger puzzle. Doubling the average page views per session might be the opposite of what’s good for your business. Doubling hits almost certainly is.

Know your goals, then figure out how the metrics fit into those goals.

Find out how people are actually using the site. Figure out if what you want and what users are getting is the right match. Ask yourself if it makes sense to drive people to more content, or if the site is more valuable by letting people get in and out quickly. Look at the numbers and figure out if they mean you’re doing things right or wrong.

Stop looking for the magic metric. There isn’t one.