User experience versus designerwank

I'm (quite happily, though not without some bitterness) walking away from a web design project that's taken up much of my life in the past couple of years. After producing what I thought was a clean, uncluttered site, the new site manager has demanded that it look 'arty' and 'sexy' - the references he showed me were what I can only describe as 'designerwank', if you forgive the terminology (did I just invent that? I don't know... Cool if I did, I quite like it). The discussion ended up in a plain old shouting match as I tried to make the point that web sites need to be usable and accessible.

Coincidentally, for the redesign I had been eyeing up Jeffrey Zeldman's personal site The Daily Report as a model - I think it's clean and is pure standards-based XHTML and CSS. For an information-led site, like the one I was working on, it's ideal and (importantly) means it can be redesigned simply by changing the CSS file. I say coincidentally, because there's an article by Zeldman that's just appeared on his site that chimes 100% with my own thoughts about web design. Like many, I went through the 'let's show them what can be done with Flash and dynamic HTML etc etc' and now I've put away childish things and moved on to thinking about 'user experience'.

I think it's essential for a designer (print/web/whatever) to consider the user first, the client second, and themselves... never, maybe? I mean, sure, think of yourself when deciding whether to take a job on or not, but don't take on a supermarket's frozen food packaging job if your sole intention is to produce something that's alien to the store's clientele but ensures you can deny having 'sold out' to your designer friends.
So with this web redesign my initial pique at being argued with (it's not quite a client/designer relationship, more a collegiate one so I was justified in my passionate response!) has vanished in favour of simply saying 'well on your own head be it' and moving on. The problem is the site isn't getting visitors; but it's got nothing to do with the design - it's all about the content - there isn't any. And content is number one in the whole 'user experience' thing... making the site whizzy and hiding buttons is certainly an experience, but it's not really the kind that is appropriate to a news-based and resource site.

Here's an extract from the article in which Zeldman reports on a panel at this year's South By South West (SXSW) gathering:

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report:
"Thinking like a user. It seems so obvious. But it is not.

When I think back to the many bleeding-edge CSS, DHTML, and Flash presentations I've seen or participated in over the years, the motivation was inevitably, 'How hard can I push Flash?' or 'How many objects can I move on this page?' or 'What else can I show you in Firefox that won't work in IE?'

It was never, 'What would the user like?'

Yet in The Flash vs. HTML Game Show, designers with cutting edge skills were more interested in creating great user experiences than in manipulating their chosen technology for its own sake. Nobody on the panel and nobody in the audience thought twice about this user orientation. That is a profound change, and I hope it continues to spread."