In The End
We have shown the new 9rules (coming April 30th) to a number of people and suprisingly some of them came back with the reaction that it is the best one yet. I know it is good, but calling it the best one can hinder on a couple of factors. It is completely different from the current version so maybe people always think this way with a fresh design.
However, I remember the same reaction coming from people when we showed them Chawlk for the first time as well and I came to realize something that is pretty obvious. When it comes to websites, in the end people just want a design that stays out of the way, easy to look at and clean. It really is that simple.
Yes there should be some design touches that make the site standout from others, but in the end people just want to use the site. You ever go to Reddit and think those people complain about how plain the site is? I don’t often see it and when there were proposed design changes to spice things up, it looked like there was going to be a revolt.
This is by no means supposed to shy designers away from going balls out on a design, just realize that after the awards are handed out and you added the site to your portfolio, will it matter if nobody uses it? It seems as though the greatest designs never get used or is it that the greatest designs do get used and the prettiest ones just get added to galleries?
I love sites that look good. I appall sites that look like garbage. I respect sites that get all the money and traffic. I hate sites that get all the money and traffic and make my eyes bleed.
How many video games have you played that when all the technical achievements for their graphics and game of the year awards for their gameplay?
Again I don’t advocate plain design, far from it. As people who create websites though we have to remember what happens in the end: people just use our sites to use our sites.
One Response
Thijs Visser / 01.09.09
” It seems as though the greatest designs never get used or is it that the greatest designs do get used and the prettiest ones just get added to galleries? ”
You luckily corrected yourself in the second half of the sentence. The prettiest websites are not equally the greatest websites.
Although it The prettiest designs end up in the galleries. Which is one reason why these css galleries are mostly nonsense (one other reason is that they are counter inspirational).
We should not forget that we should use our ‘make it pretty’ and ’style’ ingredients should be used with reason and stragegy, based on the principles of design.
None the less, there is a trend that we must use this use this pretty ingredient all over (fuelled by css galleries). Luckily the are designers who stand above this all, and truly understand design. These individuals make thoughtfully use of the design elements, like a chef cook uses his ingredients.
On the other side of the whole, reddit ignored the ingredient asthetics and graphic design.
” How many video games have you played that when all the technical achievements for their graphics and game of the year awards for their gameplay? ”
There was far too much buzz around Crysis’ advanced graphics, which no coumpter could run. There was no attention whatsoever for the cinematic gameplay. Here again, funky graphics are an element/ingredient cinematic gameplay (good design), but there are a lot of other ingredients that make up cinematic gameplay (good design).
There is indeed too much emphasis on the ‘graphics’ ingredient. We must should pay attention to all the ingredients that make up good design, and use these elements with care, thought and reasoning behind them.