Web designers don't think straight..........

[gecko2]

Check this article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/2041040.stm

What do you all think? Do designers confuse the general public?

[antne]

i do think that some designers (not all) compromise too much with design over function.however i think that it depends entirely on the individual site.

if its a site that is about information or trying to sell something then yes it should be simple and easy to navigate,
however if you are designing a site about a movie or something like that then people expect to see animations,intros and effect etc..

interesting article.....many times i think ive designed a great interface or site until it comes to consumer testing.
they sit in front of the monitor,the site loads and they just their confused about what to do next..


so yes i do think that designers can confuse the general public...

interesting post,ill keep my eye on this to see what others think

[ad_mtk2]

If designers are like me, then yes the general public are guaranteed confusion from my loquaciousness.

The reason is, we like to come up with brilliant ideas that are very challenging and stimulating for us, as PLain HTML is too easy etc, and we first think that we don't want the users to get bored.

We spend lots of time making creative and initiative designs without realiseing that poeple wont understand.

Only designers can really understand designers

[chrisvo69er]

For the most part it's true. But it does depend on the site. Flash Kit is easily understandable. Dunno about some of the members here though

[phlegm_thrower]

i think that's true... otherwise i wouldn't have read a post somewhere here in FK saying something like "general rule of thumb... always think everyone else is dumber than you are when u design your site"

antne made a good point... if you have a site that will contain a lot of information (eg.online shops, company websites) then they should keep it simple to make it easy to navigate as the information itself will attract people.

if the site doesn't contain much information (personal websites) or art/design focused sites (from illustrations to 3Ds), then a little more elaborate design is acceptable to enhance the theme of the site or to show off personal skills (to get a job maybe?)...

what do u guys think?

[phroenyx]

Originally posted by chrisvo69er
Flash Kit is easily understandable. Dunno about some of the members here though

quargle flank bobble lisp? abatey chopert ugop thenk!



you read that stuff about macromedia teaming up with dickface (can't remeber his real name) to improve flash useability?

jacob nielson, thats it. I hate him.

[bayhaus]

I agree with ad_mtk2 only designers can understand design but its our duty as designers to always merge aesthetics with function and i reckon the good designers are the ones which can come up with these two soltions... and convince the client!

[antne]

Originally posted by bayhaus
I agree with ad_mtk2 only designers can understand design but its our duty as designers to always merge aesthetics with function and i reckon the good designers are the ones which can come up with these two soltions... and convince the client!

agreed

i think designers should always compromise between design and function....always giving function priority
not always easy

i dont want 2advanced to take over the thread as it often does but a good example of design AND function is some of 2advanced work
people can learn (dont copy) alot from some of their designs.

just my opinion

[gecko2]

Originally posted by antne
[B]

Originally posted by bayhaus
I agree with ad_mtk2 only designers can understand design but its our duty as designers to always merge aesthetics with function and i reckon the good designers are the ones which can come up with these two soltions... and convince the client!

i dont want 2advanced to take over the thread as it often does[B]

Who the **** is this 2advanced that everyone keeps bangin on about???? Are they good at what they do? (bad attempt at joke, sorry)

Personally, I think if you visit a site and the navigation isn't apparant within a few seconds what's the point of building the site? A few people may try and find the bad links, but 98.3% will simply go to the next site no matter how fancy pants it looks. It's upto the designers to act as translators to the internet once were virgins who have just woken up to the web, but who are still not too sure what to do with it. If the designer can make the site simple, appealing yet mindblowing then site is an excellent site. A designer can open the eyes of these people, I remember the first time a site made me go "WOW". Funny that, as I don't remember what site it was!

[aversion]

web designers, in general, are the most amateurish, unprofessional designers in the business. Not only that but they tend to believe that they have divine rights to expect the user to appreciate the superfluous efforts they have put into a page. Web designers seem to think the most important aspect of a web page is the way it looks.

i'm assuming this is a result of the fact that there's no barrier to entry, anyone can call themselves a web designer and make visible contributions to the internet.

how many people here really care about the user? How many people here can say they honestly place as much importance on the user experience as they do with their irrational desires to create pages that are aesthetic mysteries? How many designers here have researched and kept up with develpments in GUI design and psychology, how many of you take the time to seek out and appreciate articles like this or this.

there are, in my opinion at least, two things that should be foremost in the designer's mind when they sit down to create a consumer site.

One, is the user experience.
Two, is the intended message.

I will never understand why people think that mystery meat navigation is ever going to impress anyone, it is always a option but i have never seen it deployed successfully on a site where the intended user experience is not mystery and/or confusion (for example). in general any commercial site without clear navigation is going to annoy and alienate users.

one thing i think it's important for designers to keep in mind is the way users process and think when they're navigating through a web page, how easily they can be distracted by prominent elements (the last thing you need on an order form page) and how a user will generally blame themselves and feel bad when they can't navigate through a site, leading to often misleading results in user feedback questionaires.

your aesthetic considerations should be focused on the site's intended message. Generally a client may not be able to delineate this easily for you and you might have to do some digging to discover what it is that they're trying to express with their brand. Dividing words into two tiers can be a good approach, having a primary consideration, such as 'proven quality', and secondary considerations such as 'reliable' and 'reassuringly expensive'. Hillman Curtis wrote an article where he explained how his company uses a target diagram to decide on the relative importance of keywords they pick up in client meetings have towards the message.

to those of you who think this sounds boring (and you probably just skipped to this paragraph!) it can be, but you're missing the point. The best commercial design breaks all these rules to create a new and exciting way to experience a site while effortlessly expressing the site's message as if it's being absorbed through osmosis by the user. A creative and original site challeges the user rather than annoy or disappoint them.

But to get to that point you have to understand the rules. You have to know how the user behaves, how the user interacts, you have to know how to look at your design and cut out anything that's irrelevant to the message or the experience.