Like everything else in our keep-up-with-the-Joneses culture, design follows a herd mentality. So, someone created the first Flash splash page back in about 1999 — and suddenly everybody had to have one. Some companies spent a bundle on them, only to find out that most users immediately looked for the “Skip Intro” button. (Remember...
Design Constraints
So, I’m a teensie bit jealous of designers/artists that get free reign to be as creative and original as they want to be. Me, I’m trapped in a very small box. I’m redesigning our alumni site, and at best it’s an exercise in limitation; the afore-mentioned Alumni community Web product is rigidly designed with...
Back to Basics: Color
Let’s talk about Web design and color. Thank goodness the heady days of “just because you can” are fading, but I still see sites with the “box ‘o Crayolas” color scheme. You know, where every element has a different color (or worse, every letter in a headline is a different color)? At a glance,...
Pithy Quotes on Usabilty and Design – STC Usability SIG
“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. ” – Robert Wilensky, author and professor, UC Berkeley “If the user can’t use it, it doesn’t work.” – Susan Dray, Dray &...
That's the difference between art and design
I was speaking with my boss yesterday about a redesign we’re planning. I was pointing out the need to survey our key users, so that we could set and validate our design goals. “Art is very subjective,” sez I. “Some people like one thing, others like another. With this redesign, I need to be...
Tiny Text Isn't the Answer
Lately, I’ve been seeing a downward trend in information delivery, both literally and figuratively. The text on Web pages is getting smaller and smaller, and it’s gotten pretty annoying. I’ve got pretty good eyes, thanks to the wonders of contacts, but even I’m having to squint to see what’s on the page anymore. It’s...