- Image via Wikipedia
Is web design is at a crossroads? After reading an article last week in the Washington Post on redesigning Facebook, I began to wonder about this question in new ways as it relates to our technology sensitivities.
What makes for good web design? (I won’t veer off on the design in our lives question.) Does good design impede with our need for speed, efficiency and information? Does adding aesthetics impede our need to maneuver and navigate so we have to think about it? Can good design inspire and solve a problem simultaneously?
According to the Washington Post article, Facebook, among many social sites, values function over form instead of the oft quoted “form follows function” coined by Louis Sullivan in the late 19th century. However, I believe Mr. Sullivan’s phrase is still true and relevant today. In our marketing oriented 21st century, we can reprhase that as “form follows positioning.” Positioning conveys what an organization does better and differently. Positioning describes one’s uniqueness, strengths and promises. Positioning allows you to connect with your audience(s) and embed your uniqueness in their minds.
Web designers need to consider their client’s positioning when conceptualizing a site. Most designers call it building the look and feel. But it’s more than that. It’s strategizing how a user will behave and experience a site. It’s giving the site an attitude. The attitude can be cool, modern, classic, elegant, earthy, or straightforward. The designer must tread carefully here as I get back to my question about being at a crossroads. The functionality of the site must be understood as we consider the aesthetics. I liked what Bill Moggridge says about design:
…design is really about solving a problem that makes something more pragmatic, and useful, and valuable and valued, and of course you can add qualities of aesthetics to that, that make it also a delight. At the same time, if it fails on the functionality side, all is lost, whereas if it fails on the delight side, it might still fit into a lot of people’s lives in a satisfactory if not an exciting way.”
Apple and Target, for example, position their products on the basis of design. Designers are highly respected and involved at Apple. Their products are elegant. As you can see from the link, Apple’s current home page features the Beatles. Target’s stores are well designed and their ads are quite clever.
Microsoft and Walmart take a different tack. Microsoft focuses on efficient engineering (Evaluate, test and deploy is the message currently). Walmart positions for value. Their blue logo is somewhat akin to Facebook — low key and unobtrusive with limited emotional connection. If you look at their web site you immediately know what they’re all about.
In most cases our role as creatives is to bring enough delight, whimsy, and character to a site that allows the user to be comfortable. We’re not opinion makers. We’re influencers. Sometimes bold and sometimes subtle. That’s our role in technology.
So what’s Facebook uniqueness? Facebook focuses on making us kings of conversation. It provides a platform where we talk to one another and facilitates a coalescence of sharing. It is the roadmap of converging opinions, ideas and sentiments. You’re here to connect.
You are not on Facebook so that Facebook gets attention. You’re not to notice it. The design provides a framework, not a mood. I would like the design to be more enticing, but it appears most people like their Facebook design. Bill Moggridge likes it too. The Post quick survey shows I am well in the minority by a 62-38% margin.
