In my last post, I referred to “well designed†Web sites, as though we’d all agree on what counted as good design. I wonder how far we do, though? At any rate, this is the first of an occasional series of posts in which I’ll set out my own personal views—for disagreement, if need be. I hope some designers or would-be designers will find the series helpful.
The most important quality of a good design is what should go without saying, but has to be said. A Web site should be “fit for purposeâ€, as John Reid would say. It must do what its owner wants it to do. It must be a success in its owner’s eyes.
We can be quite catholic about this. If all an owner wants is to have a site to show off, that’s cool. If it’s just a bit of branding, OK. If it’s fun simply to take in its colours and animations, fine. On the other hand, most people want their sites visited. Whenever that’s the case, we have to draw a few lines in the sand.
The first challenge we have to meet is that of Web guru Jacob Nielsen. “Ultimately, users visit your website for its content. Everything else is just the backdrop. The design is there to allow people to access the content.â€
I used to think this was much too narrow, even puritanical. And perhaps it is, as it stands. What’s wrong with a site that just makes visitors laugh, or which provokes them with its extreme views? What’s wrong with a site that just shows off what a designer can do? Look, for example, at the site for Neostream Interactive.
Nothing is wrong with such sites, of course. But then the humour is the content; the extreme views are the content; and if people visit a site to see what a designer can do, even that becomes content. The style has turned into the substance, the ‘how’ into the ‘what’.
So this gives us Unbreakable Rule 1. Be 100% clear about what your site is going to offer visitors.
More to come!
