why are usability conventions a black and white subject?
One thing that I have never quite understood as a web designer is the willingness to make something far less successful visually in order to gain a minimal increase in usability. For example, removing 80 pixels of vertical whitespace in the header of a homepage design. Yes, removing the whitespace would bring the content up higher, but at what cost? Why are usability and other functional concerns of such absolute importance? Is it not possible to design something that is usable yet not as far as it could be, and have aesthetics be considered a worthwhile tradeoff? I think so, let me explain.
USABILITY IS NOT BINARY
Somewhere along the line designers have created a set of conventions that supposedly determine if a website is usable or not. These “rules” have seen widespread adoption and are rarely questioned. Combine this with the web’s all or nothing mentality and you have a set of “rules” that if not followed precisely result in the having the label FAIL applied to it. But why are these conventions applied and followed so closely without thinking about why they exist?
Just trying to discuss these conventions online is often met with animosity. However, it is these conventions that have lead to the homogenization of design on the web. Lets be honest, 90% of websites have a navigation that runs across the top of the page, main content starts between 200 and 500 pixels from the top, and presentation is purposely separated from content. These are all fine, but why are they all of a sudden the basis from which we start every single project?
THE CHANGE IS COMING
Elliot Jay Stocks released the slides from his presentation “The importance of beauty in absolutely everything” a few months ago, and I can’t help but agree with his assessment. Most of the websites online right now are BORING. Unfortunately it is far easier to apply the same boring style to a website instead of thinking about the potential for concept or proper design research. We have all seen the various design trends over the years; pixel fonts, web 2.0 gloss, grunge, the list goes on.
But what if instead we actually stopped for a second and thought about avoiding those absolute rules that go untested. What if we were able push the boundaries of usability, what if we began using presentation to support content? Maybe we would discover that the unquestionable rules of web design don’t hold quite as much weight as we thought they did. Everything is in a state of constant evolution, and web design is no different.
What I am really speaking about is context, which is constantly changing. The context in which these “rules” were made is most certainly not the same after any significant amount of time passes. Need an example? In Chicago it is supposedly still illegal to eat in a place that is on fire. In what context was this law made, and who in their right mind would eat in a burning building? I know this is an extreme example, but in five years maybe our laws of good web design will sound just as ludicrous.
Right now we really see this scenario in relation to usability conventions, but what other web design conventions exist that go untested?
USABILITY IS NOT BINARY
Somewhere along the line designers have created a set of conventions that supposedly determine if a website is usable or not. These “rules” have seen widespread adoption and are rarely questioned. Combine this with the web’s all or nothing mentality and you have a set of “rules” that if not followed precisely result in the having the label FAIL applied to it. But why are these conventions applied and followed so closely without thinking about why they exist?
Just trying to discuss these conventions online is often met with animosity. However, it is these conventions that have lead to the homogenization of design on the web. Lets be honest, 90% of websites have a navigation that runs across the top of the page, main content starts between 200 and 500 pixels from the top, and presentation is purposely separated from content. These are all fine, but why are they all of a sudden the basis from which we start every single project?
THE CHANGE IS COMING
Elliot Jay Stocks released the slides from his presentation “The importance of beauty in absolutely everything” a few months ago, and I can’t help but agree with his assessment. Most of the websites online right now are BORING. Unfortunately it is far easier to apply the same boring style to a website instead of thinking about the potential for concept or proper design research. We have all seen the various design trends over the years; pixel fonts, web 2.0 gloss, grunge, the list goes on.
But what if instead we actually stopped for a second and thought about avoiding those absolute rules that go untested. What if we were able push the boundaries of usability, what if we began using presentation to support content? Maybe we would discover that the unquestionable rules of web design don’t hold quite as much weight as we thought they did. Everything is in a state of constant evolution, and web design is no different.
What I am really speaking about is context, which is constantly changing. The context in which these “rules” were made is most certainly not the same after any significant amount of time passes. Need an example? In Chicago it is supposedly still illegal to eat in a place that is on fire. In what context was this law made, and who in their right mind would eat in a burning building? I know this is an extreme example, but in five years maybe our laws of good web design will sound just as ludicrous.
Right now we really see this scenario in relation to usability conventions, but what other web design conventions exist that go untested?
