Why? Because our job is to talk to you as the client, understand your requirements, and draw up plans for the perfect solution to your needs. Just as a building architect must understand many different disciplines - materials, engineering, aesthetics, human behaviour, we must understand usability, design, branding, programming, marketing, search engine optimisation.

In the real world, building design is informed by, and influences human behaviour. Buildings must be designed to efficiently handle large volumes of people, and have spaces that achieve different functions - transport, recreation, work. The architect can influence the buildings users by clever design - shopping malls are infamous for being designed to maximise spend per head.

Web sites must similarly be designed with the focus on complementing and influencing behaviour to achieve the site objectives. Get building design wrong and there are tell tale signs. Ever seen eroded pathways across the green spaces around malls or corporate offices? These are "desire lines" and indicate that the users of this space see a requirement for movement along this pathway. The architect failed to predict this requirement, and so did not reinforce the area with a path.

Get the architecture on a web site and people do not buy. Frustrated by difficult navigation, long delays, or plain ugly design, they vote with their mouse and leave.

Thinking in terms of "Web architecture" reminds us to focus on human behaviour first, the technology second.