greg-wood.co.uk

Just Design

Obviously design is subjective, so that separate yet related processes (development, user experience design) must be considered during the design stage. Even so, I’d like to try and focus the topic on design only, for complication reasons.

For the Artists

I know, I know, design is not art; but it is creative. Does the act of creating something aesthetically pleasing not appeal more to art orientated individuals moreso than those scientifically minded? Of course it does. The industry we are involved in is largely a visual medium. Therefore nice looking websites are arguably going to communicate more effectively to the user than something that could make their eyes bleed. And in order to create such an eye-friendly experience for the user, surely a good designer will need to know instinctively, without being told or taught, what looks good and what doesn’t. The argument for web design appealing more towards the artists amoung us is as such; that a designer recognises the visual orientation of the medium, and can create work of an aesthetically pleasing nature.

For the Scientists

The science argument is primarily the fact that the web isn’t just content. Sure, content is king and sure, the content needs to be presented effectively for optimum impact, but the thing that makes the web so unique amoungst other mainstream mediums is interactivity. Design for the web, understandably, must take this huge factor into account. It’s fundamental.

Ask anyone you know who doesn’t have a significant interest in the web industry. Your folks, your mates, whoever. You’ll find that mostly, they’ll only care about the content on any given website, and more importantly, how they as users have to interact with the site in order to gain access to it. 9 times out of 10, you’ll find that as long as the site’s content is easily accessible, they really won’t give a damn about the aesthetics. One may only comment on the visuals if they’re truly hideous.

To me interactivity is logical. It’s black and white. It’s a science. When designing a site a designer must pay a lot of respect to it for the end product to function correctly. It is this reason primarily that makes web design more appealing to those scientists; the site either works, or it doesn’t.

Conclusions and Discussion

So you know what background this opinion is coming from, I’d say I’m probably 40 percent scientist, and 60 artist. Also I should note that I’m not trying to group the field to one particular side. Like architecture, web design relies on both artists and scientists collaborating effectively to create things that are both functional and beautiful. The purpose of this article was to provoke discussion from both artists and scientists, explaining what parts of them web design appeals to most, and why. So go ahead and get commenting.

Also I’d quickly like to apologize for lack of updates and also to those using IE7 who may still encounter 1 or 2 visual oddities. I’m in Australia right now on a super-holiday and havn’t had a lot of time for anything to do with computers. I’ll be back in July.