Website Design
Posted by admin on August 23, 2010I ask a simple question: What is good design, and what is bad design?
An easy enough question, it all depends on your opinion. You might enjoy the color yellow, so yellowlane might appeal to you. Of course, everyone likes the design of this site, even if they don’t like yellow. Or do they?
I showed that site, among others, to a friend of mine. It was very interesting what his response was. He never travels among blogs like I do, and doesn’t look at as many sites as I do. He barely even goes on the internet. In short: he doesn’t know anything about design.
He doesn’t know anything about design, and yet he critizes one of the best designed sites ever. He didn’t like Yellowlane. Who is he, to do this? He knows nothing! He has no taste! I am the designer, not him.
But when I thought about it, isn’t it people like him that we design for? Isn’t it old ladies and small children, who don’t know anything about design, that we create our wonderful works of art for?
I will compare this idea of design to something else, to help you better understand my point. You have probably lived on Mars with no contact to Earth if you have not listened to rock songs. Everyone loves the guitar rifes and jammin’ solos that you can bob your head too, right?
A person who loves to play the guitar can recognize a skilled guitarist by listening to one of their songs, and hearing the fancy notes and stuff (I don’t know much guitar terminology). But a commoner music listener like me just likes it if it sounds good. I don’t care if it is hard to play, I care if it sounds good. Sure, that solo sounds complicated, but man, it doesn’t sound too nice.
A good designer might unwittingly think something is good design, but only because they know the skill involved, and the uniqueness or some other quality in the design. But what if they don’t realize it just plain sucks? What if it just doesn’t look nice? Does our design skill blind us? It’s not like Yellowlane does suck though, I let the friend look at the site longer and he did end up deciding it was good. But my point remains.
The people we design for don’t know the skill involved in designing. They simply don’t understand. Yet, these ignorant people are the people we design for, and so it is their tastes we must please.
I’m glad I wrote my new idea down quickly, because I’m already beginning to think it is stupid.