81 A notch in a tree

To me, this article illustrates what the consenus would agree to be ‘what web design is’, not what it should be. It ticks the right boxes, it validates the job descriptions of hundreds of thousands of professionals who are (my words) ‘doing the right thing’. But what a seriously demoralising thought that is. Is this it?

There seems to be a big backlash against a moniker of ‘New Media’. It IS new. What… 30 or 40 years old? Against the printed word which is many thousands of years old? TV is still new media (even if it is stale) – the possibilities it affords haven’t yet been fully realised.

And to draw a big line in the sand between ‘Professional Associations’ and the ‘Web Community’ only condemns the wider audience to a flatter, more constrictive view of what web design can be. We can learn from both, can’t we? I do agree that many sites are (pardon the pun) paper-thin and have no underlying substance. All style and no… you get the picture. But there’s no difference from existing print media or traditional broadcoast media in that comparison. Does the pursuit of a consistent-with-print visual expression condemn a website to ‘bad web design’?

The whole notion of ‘web design’ in this article is reduced to nothing more than how a designer completes his or her project within a specific set of artificial web-related constraints (i.e. what constitutes ‘good’ web design in 2006-07). If I follow the line of thought here, I can put together a social networking site that ‘encourages human activity’ and ‘changes gracefully over time’ – it fits in a 1024 × 768 layout, can be viewed over a mobile phone or a TV and also feeds me with information to my feed-savvy browser every 10 minutes. Oh, and it retains its identity. Really? That’s it? That alone is good web design?

Rubbish. ‘Web’ design really is no different than poster design or book design or any other media because that’s all it is – media. And designers should be challenging those who create the media to make it evolve and refine it and grow it to allow them to deliver better messages. You get better design if you understand your medium, but that alone doesn’t equate to ‘good’ design.

I believe what’s being argued for in the article is better ‘interactive’ design – irrespective of the media. But I still think the ‘old school’ print designer has a huge well from which to draw when it comes to solving design issues relating to the messages as well as the medium.

There’s too many examples of ‘fixed’ website constraints (‘boxy’ layouts, typeface choices, etc) in this article that bely a design aesthetic that’s too tied to the technology. For all its warts and ungodly efforts that Flash has given us it has also given us the freedom to explore outside the grid and there are many examples of wonderful designs that DO work at an aesthetic and functional level. I’m not necessarily endorsing Flash as an end-product in itself but it does demonstrate that the web doesn’t need to be JUST HTML…

Shouldn’t the web change to suit our message rather than vice versa? Shouldn’t ‘web design’ be less self-conscious about technology and more on the content itself?

posted at 10:06 am on December 3, 2007 by Simon Mundy

82 Designer, Blogger, Arcitecht

Web arcitchture is not just about the design of your site, but also how it relates to the other sites in your community. It’s actually very similar to how cities have banking districts and garment districts as well as various ethnic communities.
Google has had to become aware that your relevance on a subject comes from people who link you as well as the people who you link to as sites build a community based on mutual interest.
Being a designer, a design blogger, and information architect, I have to balance, design, content, and usability to give people an experience that will make them want to revisit my site over and over. I may never win a design award for my site, but the trade off is blog is probably much more widely read than almost any design award.

Kellis Landrum
Editor-In-Chief
www.neublack.com

posted at 03:40 am on December 4, 2007 by Kellis Landrum

83 Bookmarked

Thanks for that article… This and “A Dao of Web Design” are great references to send to print designers who think that their background automatically qualifies them to do web.

posted at 07:32 pm on December 5, 2007 by Yann B

84 Design for design sake

Dear #83, not sure if you are a designer. Speculating you are not? Just to give you a nudge. Design isn’t something new and web design surely isn’t. I’m not sure if you are the judge at what makes a “good” web designer.

I come from the days of print and I think it has made me a better designer than those that have only ever designed for the web. There is something to be said about people with experience. I am sick of young people that think web 2.0 was discovered yesterday. Anyone can be a designer, an architect, a programmer. All you need to do these days is google what you want to learn and do it. In the old days it was all about figuring things out the hard way!

posted at 04:35 am on December 7, 2007 by Sam Rotter

85 Jeffrey Zeldman: King of Web Standards!

In regard to the article its important that more business people understand that their websites should be designed properly. Its easy for some designers to pull the old wool over the eyes on some issies but now business owners can just ask some simple questions to know if their sites are being designed right.

posted at 07:20 pm on December 15, 2007 by Masuren Paddeln

86 And what about the content?

Far too many sites have style and no substance, a pretty path to walk but nothing there when you arrive. I would include the definition of a web designer as someone who concentrates harder on the end material as they do on the visuals and navigation. In that sense a lot of rubbish online can be attributed to designers and suits who think web design is little content and a lot of glitter, that you have to lure surfers, getting them excited about branding and all that marketing crap.

I think good design is the other way around, especially as “bad” design can be forgiven if I can find the stuff and see it quickly with the necessary details. Good design has good content at the end, something unique to read or look at. The content itself must be part of the design and be a major part of that process. I think the architecture analogy can apply here but I would twist to say that having great engineering means nothing if you have trashy tenants living in your so-called grand palace.

My experience from building sites is that it the html code comes last and one of the very first questions I ask myself/clients is: what content have you got for your site?

posted at 04:30 pm on January 14, 2008 by Philip Dodd

87 Untitled

The most important part of a design is for me the usuability. It is not enough when a website just looks great. If the user cannot find the important content at first glance or if it takes just too long to load the whole site because of big files, the designer did something wrong. A webdesigner should never forget that he normally doesn`t design a site for himself but for the users.

posted at 11:20 am on January 29, 2008 by Frank Dimmer

88 Its Own Medium

[em]“Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.”[/em]

I like the idea that the web is its own medium. The opportunity, is that it has less constraints than “traditional” media. A newspaper is going to be a newspaper. A book, a book. A magazine…well, you get it. A web site can be on a computer monitor. Your 50” plasma. Your blackberry. A web site can be static. It can be rich with typography. It can be purely video. Or dynamic flash. Or it could include all of the above.

I think we struggle with what web design should be—because it doesn’t sit still long enough to be defined. Once we define it, it ups and changes. Web design in general is beautiful. It’s a great medium.

I like the definition because it allows the web to live, to be flexible. Web design today isn’t what it’s going to be tomorrow. It’s the medium that will push design. Nicely done.

posted at 07:52 am on January 31, 2008 by Adam Landrum

89 What Web Design Is

I very much enjoyed this article. I like the comparison to Architecture and often compare it to Industrial Design myself.

Recently I met with a Graphic Design firm that wanted to hire me to code designs they furnished. I tried in vain to explain that interface and web design requires a different approach.

There is a quote by Buckminster Fuller that I love to use:
“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.�

This works for me on so many levels. Design is about solving problems not about pretty. Good Design solves a problem and makes a thing of beauty at the same time.

Scientists call it “The Elegant Solution”

posted at 11:12 pm on February 16, 2008 by Robin Ragle-Davis

90 web design , media design, almog

really they this article some great points , this is a must read

posted at 03:57 pm on February 18, 2008 by almog koren