Once again the theme is that we as humans are huge fans of signs and symbols. We will not look any closer at something than we want to, which is usually less than sign makers (of whatever variety) think. I love the analogy of real world spaces to web spaces. Web designers must be master sign makers, making the entrances, exits, turns, and forks as clear as possible and as consistent as possible.
The section discussing the difference between LA and Boston street signs was hilarious. As much as I hated living in LA, I had to appreciate those massive street signs. The move to oversized titles and minimized content is definitely a trend of modern web design that I’ve noticed. Take the log in or splash page for Tumblr for example. Massive “tumblr.” logo, huge “USERNAME” and “PASSWORD” field titles. There is not mistaking where I am suppose to register.
(Permit me a parenthetical side note, however… WHY OH WHY is the log in always so hard to find for existing users? Netflix does this as well as do a number of other sites, and it drives me nuts. In most cases I access a website on my computer with my log in info cached, but when I’m on an alien computer I have to hunt for the tiny log in! Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine!)
In the final analysis I can appreciate the “Playskool-ification” of the web, as long as I when I’m good ready to dive in to some meaty content it hasn’t been left on the cutting room floor for a website full of big bubbly boxes, logos, and registration fields.
After realizing my notes were quickly approaching the length of the article itself, I decided I would focus in on one area that stood out most to me. Being a process oriented, analytical thinker, I try and look at a problem from every possible angle, plan for every contingency, and plug in every gap! Unfortunately I take that style of thinking in to situations where it is not always necessary. I’ve taught classes where by the end of a session the student’s eyes are glazed over from information overload. In hopes to help the audience avoid confusion when they inevitably encounter an “edgecase”, I instead confuse them by giving them more detail than is immediately necessary.
We fall in to the same pit in all manner of creative endeavors. In fact, ever since a brutally tough English class my junior year of high school, I began a nasty habit of saying something in 10 words when 2 would have sufficed. Shortening sentences, getting to the point, and making my ideas more immediately accessible has been a battle since.
This same thought process must also be brought to web design. Burying the important content in a mountain of detail does not do anyone any good. The other pitfall, especially for creative types, is to design with the design first. We already know what colors, graphics, animations, and other visual elements we want to throw down; yet we haven’t carefully considered how they will function. Building from the skeleton; the fundamental, underlying functionality and navigation structure, will give us a much more effective canvas to put our shiny graphics on.
Overall the article was a great, thought provoking read. A condensed, bullet pointed list for some of those key design concepts would be great cubicle wall material next to any designer’s monitor!
I was also amused at how “typical” of a user I am! I skim, I want my info in 3 clicks or less, I want the inverted pyramid of information, I scan for the familiar search box, I ignore instructions and plow through a website like a bull in a china shop until I get the information I want. If that is how I surf, why would I demand users do break their habits for one of my designs?
The Smashing Book’s thesis would seem to be that predictability and simplicity are often a designer’s best friends, and I would agree. Truly innovative design often gets us to do entirely new things in a way that feels familiar to us. We aren’t being forced to relearn how to complete a task or obtain information. Instead we are lead along a system in which we interact with a new product through natural or previously learned behaviors. A tried (and tired) yet true example is how the iPhone brought a multitude of nearly techno-illiterate consumers in to the world of smartphones; a world that was previously exclusive to the tech fanatic or business consumer.
Undoubtedly my design process for websites will change drastically as a result of this article. I can look at God knows how many projects where I started with – what I thought was – a great idea. Giving a user access to that idea is a whole other ball of wax. For myself, I already understood the what of my idea, I was the one that came up with it! But how do I get others to understand it? How often do we give that much concerted effort to make that as simple and effective as possible? We simply move forward and present it to the hapless user who didn’t have the benefit of riding along in our mad “genius” creative process. The common result is a confused, lost, and baffled audience. This article certainly offers some great tools to build from the audience side backwards and to help ensure our “brilliant” ideas aren’t buried under a mountain of inaccessibility.
