What is good web design?
4
Posted under: Design
The argument is often made that web design and print design are very different from one another, like in the excellent post by Jeffrey Zeldman. Although this is true, I thought it would be interesting to look at how they are the same. I was listening to Andy Rutledge’s podcast today, and he made some interesting analogies about web design that got me thinking.
In his post, he criticized AIGA and Communication Arts, American leaders in the graphic design community, for refusing to truly acknowledge the web medium. Though I am a big fan of both organizations for pure, juicy, design inspiration—I completely agree that neither understand the web. Every year, their interactive annuals mostly profile Flash websites, merely focusing on colour, type, video/images and other purely visual or conceptual elements. I feel that these organizations are at least partly to blame for many in the graphic design community not understanding true web design.
But this post is not meant to beat up on the AIGA and Communication Arts. They won’t change until they’re forced to by their readers, or until somehow over time everyone naturally evolves with the still young and misunderstood web industry. But this whole issue got me thinking about the nature of design period. Many would have corrected me earlier by saying that there is nothing wrong with focusing on aesthetics because that’s what design is—it’s visual. But is it?
What is traditional design all about?
One of the most, if not the most important design philosophies I’ve been taught is how semantics, syntactics and pragmatics factor into design. Most print designers acknowledge this; we know that first of all, there has to meaning in design. We can make it look great, and communicate a message visually, but ultimately, there must be a message. There must be content. And lastly, it must work—it must be pragmatic. For example, if you are designing a magazine spread, you need to first of all, make sure you have content. The content, and the intended audience will dictate how the spread will look. Then once you craft a design, you must make sure it works—that the body text doesn’t fall into the page gutter, that the inks used won’t cause ghosting or registration problems, and that there are page numbers so that the reader knows where they are. Without just one of those factors, meaning, aesthetics or practical application, the design can hardly be called good.
All designers usually resent one of two statements from clients: That designers are only needed to make pretty pictures, or on the other hand, that client know how to make it look pretty, but they need us to work the software. The reason either of these statements are insulting to designers is because really you need both skills. Solid understanding of design principles is why the design looks good, but also thoughtful problem solving and technical implementation is why the design respectively has meaning and doesn’t fall flat in the execution.
Though these ideas are nothing new, they should help designers from a traditional background understand why their perspective needs to change when it comes to the web. Because design is not only visual, but also practical, technical skills have always been a necessary part of a designers toolbox. After all, print design used to be much more technically involved before computer software gradually took away the need for thorough typesetting and printing-press knowledge. Interior design is an incredibly technical discipline, involving not not just conceptual, layout and colour understanding, but knowledge of materials, construction, finishing, and all other decidedly non-aesthetics-related skills. For example, an interior designers’ choice of materials is based not just on how it looks, but also how the users will be able to live around it and work with it day-in and day-out.
Web design is no different
For this reason, good web design cannot be judged simply on good aesthetics, balance, harmony, contrast, typography, colour, or any other basic design elements. It has to also be based off of how it works in the medium it lives in. How does it enhance the content, how does it provide intuitive navigation, seamless flow, information architecture, usability, accessibility? All of these factors are necessary for truly good, quality design for the web. Just as it’s always been, design is partly technical problem solving. And though that thought scares most designer new to the web, they have to come to grips with it.
It’s difficult, if not impossible to excel at web design if you don’t know how the web works. That means that to design for the web you need to learn about things like web standards, HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Learn what all of the major browsers are, and how to develop sites so they work in all of them despite each ones minor (and sometimes major quirks). Do you know what terms like MySQL, AJAX, Apache, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or ASP.net mean? Learn a little bit about servers, and databases, and server-side scripting, you don’t have to be good enough to develop a back-end custom-coded site, but at least know the basics, or at least their purpose. Even more importantly, learn how people use the web—it may be drastically different from the way you use it, and knowing this will greatly influence the quality of your design.
The bottom line
The point in all of this; the design community for the most part refuses to move forward with the web, partly out of ignorance, and partly out of fear of the technical side of implementing web design. But there is no need to fear this, or worry about losing the design-side in favor of a more technical one. As discussed, design has always been about the technical implementation of good aesthetics so that the product is usable to the audience. Rutledge, mentioned earlier, used the analogy of a shoe designer not just required to design a nice looking shoe, but also make sure it fits, conforms to shoe standards, and doesn’t wear out.
What is required more than anything else is the modesty to admit change is needed in how one goes about his or her design process, and enough passion for good design to throw out preconceived notions in an effort to better ones craft.
An upcoming post will help the humble-hearted print designer wishing to understand the web medium more fully by breaking down necessary fundamentals and explaining them. Please use the comment form below to express agreements/disagreements, or outline things you think that every web designer should know more about.
By Rogers
on April 22nd, 2008
Well Said!
Why someone, who learned how to finish a graphic job for printing, about lineature, dpi’s, cmyk and icc profiles, feel that will fail in learn css or xhtml?
By Kyle
on April 24th, 2008
Good point Rogers, even with the help of software, there are still some fairly complex procedures involved with printing. If you can learn that, surely you can learn simple programming basics.
By Web design india
on July 25th, 2008
Nice points you have explained to make good web design.
Thanks for sharing here.
By Hollis Bartlett
on July 25th, 2008
Bang on, I have to agree 100% here, having just come from the printing industry and being a web designer as well. The design is the function, the function is the design.
Nice post on Freelance Switch as well, by the way.