04 Jan
Web Design Perfection
Posted by Martin Hill in Blogroll, Company, Web Design
It occurred to me the other day, somewhat alarmingly, that I have been involved in web design pretty much since web sites started to be ‘designed’ – i.e. thought and effort applied to what the pages looked like, rather than just what the content was.
This made me think a) I must be getting quite old now (boo!) and, b) that, in theory anyway, I must have accumulated quite alot of knowledge and experience on the subject. (hooray!)
I did think I’d try and pass on some of this knowledge, but instead, I think I’ll have a bit of a moan…
One of the things that has always slightly bugged me is that, in the design community, I have always felt web designers are somewhat looked down upon – not ‘real designers’ – just playing really. I can understand I suppose – it’s too easy for anyone who can draw shapes in a computer programme to build a working web site and call themselves a web designer. Which is why there are so many more badly designed web sites than good, (and ergo, on average web designers are crap)
This isn’t really possible in other areas of design. For example, no-one could claim to be a car designer just because they are good at drawing nice cars. It’s much bigger leap from that to actually being involved designing a car that is being built, so few ever achieve that and become legitimate car designers. Same with architects, product designers, boat designers etc.
This means that only the best designers in each of these traditional fields of design ever make it to see their creations come to fruition, and sometimes years of study is also required. This is not true with web designers, hence the profession of ‘web designer’ doesn’t carry the ‘kudos’ associated with other design professions. (Bitter? Moi?).
But – there certainly are some really fantastically good web designers (some not even working for Binamic!) and I reckon it takes a real talent (creative and technical) and several years of experience and learning to really ‘get’ web design.
Really good web design is so much more than mocking up some nice looking pages then coding them up, and this brings me on to one of my other bugbears, and that is the importance that is actually placed on what a site looks like!
It’s may sound odd, but I can’t tell you how many hours we’ve spent fine tuning the design of a site to the minutest detail, yet no thought has been given to content, usability or accessibility. I’m not blaming clients – it’s completely the fault of web designers, because it’s too easy to wow clients with pretty pictures – they are universally understood. Yes, the look of the site is extremely important, but it has to to be in context with the purpose and functionality of the site. The usability of a site ultimately has far more influence on the success of a site that the exact shade of blue used on the background, but this is actually quite dull to talk about in comparison!
Let’s go back to the car designer analogy. Imagine a car designer putting some concepts in front of his client – after a few rounds of tweaks, the client excitedly signs off his dream looking car design.
Now the car designer tries to build it, and he realises that he hasn’t actually left enough room for the engine to fit properly, so under the skin, it’s real botch job. Then he realises it is actually a pig to drive – it handles terribly, and the driving position is cramped. Tough luck though – the client has signed off the design, and there is no way the designer can go back and say he’s cocked up.
So the client ends up with a car that looks fantastic from the outside, but is actually deeply flawed. At first the client is delighted, because he can show off his amazing looking car to impress his peers and competitors, but slowly and surely the inadequacies start to nag, the visual appeal wears off, and pretty soon the client realises he’s going to need a new car.
I realise, this isn’t how the car industry works, but you see my point. And of course we’ve also forgotten the most important person of all – the passenger (or the web site user in our case). Unless you are a complete petrol head, I’d wager you often get into a car or taxi for a lift without even knowing what make it is. All you care about is whether it can get you from A to B as comfortably and easily as possible, and that the seat belt is easy to put on, and you can find the door handles, and window buttons etc. Sure, you want it to be smart and clean, but you don’t really care what colour it is, and whether it is trendy or not.
And the same is true with web site users. They just want to feel comfortable and be able to get to their destination with minimal fuss. This is where web site design should start, and the first questions that we should be asking our clients are: “Who are your users”, “Where are they trying to get to” and “How do we make your site the best way to get there?” (not “Do you like these pretty pictures?” – that comes later…).
So we design the cabin, the ergonomics and the controls first, then think about the drive train and how it handles, then once that’s all working beautifully, we put some handsome bodywork over the top, and you end up with a car that looks fab, drives like a dream, and everyone want to go for a ride in it…
Tags: design, Web Design
Comments
Andy Pearson
January 4, 2010
10:40 pm
As you have pointed out already, the web is an interactive experience, not a slideshow – designs really need to work.
I think the realisation of this is pushing more designers into ditching Photoshop and designing straight within the browser – all too often there is a separation of design and user experience when really the two are far too intertwined for that to be possible or even beneficial.
Further reading from over on the wonderful 24 Ways: http://24ways.org/2009/ignorance-is-bliss http://24ways.org/2009/make-your-mockup-in-markup
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January 5, 2010
1:07 pm
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