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.
