A primer

For the sake of this paragraph, let’s accept minimalism as an aesthetic. As an aesthetic, it is a visual style, and we have a responsibility to make sure that the style fits the project. This is part of the responsibility of direction. Therefore, we must carefully consider that the minimalist theme is appropriate to the purpose of the website, the audience, and the client. This attitude applies not only to minimalist styles, but to any other genre, including—but not limited to—grunge, dark, Web-2.0, illustration, etc. From this, it follows that the grunge look probably isn’t appropriate for a leading software company, and cartoons probably aren’t appropriate for a big law firm.

Similarly, the minimalist aesthetic must be carefully considered and applied such that the outcome fits the cause. Can you imagine Swiss layout and typography applied to a 70s-vintage Van Halen album cover?

Yeah, it doesn’t work.

And that’s the problem

I’m not going to contradict myself and suggest that the above isn’t true. We need to pay attention to the visual direction of our work and ensure that it not only delivers the proper message, but one that is cohesive with the rest of the brand. But here’s the catch: the minimalist aesthetic is improper for certain projects.

This is the problem with approaching minimalism as an aesthetic. No doubt fueled by the numerous web trend galleries (I refuse to call them ‘inspirational galleries’), we tend to associate minimalism with well-organized layouts, abundant whitespace, and perhaps even the abundance of white itself. This in itself isn’t incorrect, as many of these visual properties are the byproduct of the minimalist approach to design.

However, it’s dangerous to lock ourselves into the mindset that minimalism is an end, rather than the means to an end.

Minimalism ≠ stereotypical minimalist aesthetic

For better or for worse, not all our designs will look über-clean with the requisite amounts of whitespace to make Brockmann shed a tear.

Let’s take CNN or The New York Times. Minimalist aesthetic? Hardly. But, considering they’re news sites, I don’t expect them to successfully pull it off. To reduce these designs to the stereotypical minimalist style would sacrifice content and usability. That would be an improper application of style—inefficient, ill-advised, ill-fated, and just plain wrong.

However, although they don’t adhere to the stereotypical aesthetic, they do adhere to the minimalist ethos.

The real minimalism

Don’t need this element? Get rid of it. Calculate exactly what is necessary, and apply each element in a manner that does not dilute the purpose and ideas they represent. It’s a deliberate approach that requires a reductionist mindset.

Every visual element must have a calculated purpose. Whether an element exists for ‘rational’ purposes of highlighting a feature or for ‘less rational’ purposes of adding ambiance or whimsy to the overall aesthetic, it cannot exist simply because you want it to. Its purpose must be weighed against other elements that contribute or cancel. For example, if all that’s necessary to indicate a hyperlink is different text color and an underline, it would be superfluous to add bold italics, background color, and a different font. As designers, we should use elements that add value to our designs and omit those that don’t.

The important thing is to accept that we shouldn’t make something minimalist for the sake of style, but for the sake of improving the user experience. Every bit of extra information you include detracts from the most important information. In a time-crunched world where people have learned to decipher the goods from the junk, we need to make sure that every idea we communicate is pure gold.

Wrong.

Unfortunately, judging by a lot of the stuff I see on the web, it’s a common misconception. I see plenty of good design, but that’s all it is—good design. It’s nothing if executed without a cohesive concept.

This is why projects need proper direction.

The power of direction

You’ve probably heard of it as ‘art direction’. I prefer to more generically call it ‘direction’ because it can also incorporate aspects of design, development, and production.

Direction involves the ideation of a cohesive concept. It leads us to create messages—sometimes direct, often subliminal—that reinforce the information we’re trying to communicate. In the end, information is just words and images, which have no meaning without supportive media, context, people, and brand values. The integration of these elements should create a story, and the message piggybacks on this concept.

Case in point

For example, let’s look at the Coca-Cola Company. Design stipulates that we pay attention to properly representing their products, brand, and information. So we’ll follow the established style guide, make product information easily accessible, provide legible and readable content, bind it together with an effective visual hierarchy, and top it off with some artistic flair.

But even the most perfect execution of design, art, and marketing can’t sell Coca-Cola. People don’t buy a Coke because of the website’s navigation or aesthetic whimsy. They buy it for the product experience. Think about the last time you enjoyed a Coke (or any other soft drink). What comes to mind? The thirst-quenching feeling? The tingle as it flows down your parched throat? Maybe the smooth, sweet taste, or perhaps the bubbles and fizz that tickle your nose as you drink from a foaming cup. This is why people consume the product, and direction is about creating a concept that builds upon these valuable attributes to form a story that people can identify with.

More than the sum of its parts

Good design can stand on its own. Arguably, that’s enough, and in some ways, it’s all that a designer is really accountable for. But because we also have the responsibility of providing our clients with the best creative solutions, we need to make sure we approach our projects from multiple angles.

This is where direction steps in—to make the design more than just a vehicle for the communication of information, but of brand values as well. Otherwise, we’re just putting words and letters on the screen.

Our work should be more than that.

So you’ve completed your interviews and have a bunch of notes and data. Depending on the amount of data collected, you might feel overwhelmed. Data consolidation can be a nightmare without an organized approach.

Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to tame the madness.

Affinity diagrams 

Affinity diagrams are one of the most powerful tools for data consolidation. A collaborative exercise that allows us to build upon other people’s interpretations, they are used to find relationships between large amounts of data by structuring the information into logical groups. By doing so, common themes and connections are revealed. This allows us to analyze users’ workflows and pinpoint the areas that require our attention.

Organize and discuss your notes

First of all, organize your handwritten notes. It’s important to do this within 24 hours of the interview when it’s still fresh in your mind. Chances are you weren’t able to capture all the information that you wanted to during the interview, so this gives you a chance to fill in the gaps. Additionally, if other people conducted interviews, all of you should share and discuss your findings. This keeps everyone well informed and on equal ground.

Click the image below to download my sample interview notes of two fictitious informants using a fictitious online store.

The details in these notes are completely contrived, but I tried my best to keep it as simple as possible while keeping it (marginally) realistic.

Capture key information

You now need to isolate key information from your notes. First, you need to figure out what is important. This usually includes your informants’ goals, the problems they encountered, and some—but not all—of their actions. This helps prevent information overload because not all the data you obtained is crucial to your design. 

However, it’s always better to err on the side of capturing too much information than too little. The goal is to capture anything that you think is essential to explaining the users’ goals, tasks, and problems, while refraining from transferring too many details.

I personally like to identify key information directly on my notes, either by drawing boxes, underlining text, or using a highlighter. For the sake of this example, I’ve highlighted key information in red text. You can download the highlighted version of the interview notes below.

From this, you can transfer the key information onto individual sticky notes, called affinity notes. Any color will do as long as all the notes captured at this stage in the diagramming process are the same color. In the example provided, I used yellow.

You will notice that I didn’t transfer each highlighted phrase to the sticky notes word-for-word. Rather, I paraphrased as necessary. For example, instead of writing “wants to find Coffee Maker 2000” on the sticky, I wrote “wants to find particular product”. The store (hypothetically) sells a bunch of other products, so I decided it would be more appropriate to generalize this data point. With real life data, you’ll have to exercise your own judgement regarding the precision and accuracy of your affinity notes.

Throw it on the wall

This is where the fun part begins.

Put all the sticky notes on a large surface. Large white boards or walls are ideal if there’s no threat of having your workspace interrupted or tampered with. If there’s a chance that you’ll have to relocate or pack up your work, I suggest that you mount a sheet of butcher paper to the surface first and stick the notes to the paper. This allows you to quickly take it down and roll it up.

Click the image below to download the affinity notes in all their lookalike-sticky-note glory.

For those of you with OmniGraffle installed on your computer, you may also download the .graffle file of the affinity notes and try rearranging them yourself (sorry, no love for Visio users). You may also print the printer-friendly version below, cut out the individual notes, and rearrange them by hand.

Begin spatially organizing the notes by similarity and connection. Related stickies will be clustered together, and you’ll eventually have multiple columns of yellow sticky notes—each column representing a single theme or connection. Everyone involved in this part of the process can freely interpret and organize the notes however they deem appropriate. 

Click the image below to download my intermediate interpretation.

This can be a bit frustrating since the note you just placed down might be immediately moved afterward by your partner if he/she interprets it differently. Think about why your partner did so. If you agree, then great—your partner discovered a relationship that you have previously missed. If you disagree, also great—it’s a relationship worth discussing. 

This is what makes affinity diagramming such a powerful process—people are free to interpret, build upon, and modify the body of information in a collaborative manner. The goal is to logically structure the information until a consensus is reached.

Click the image below to download my final grouping of the affinity notes.

Analyze affinities from the user’s perspective

Now that we have established multiple themes within our data, we need to label them in the context of our users. We’ll essentially be organizing the information using a bottom-up approach.

Using a second color of sticky notes, label each column/theme using first-person language (“I”, “my”, “myself”). This puts us in the mindset of empathizing with our users. Also, because this second-order structure is all about the user, it’s more semantically correct.

Click the image below to download my labelled interpretation.

Analyze affinities from the system’s perspective

Now that we’ve identified the process in the context of our users, we need to understand how these labels involve the system (interface, website, product) that we’re designing.

Continuing the bottom-up approach, use a third color of sticky note to create a first-order structure that dictates the organization of all the information below it. Keep these labels short and concise—no more than two or three words. They should identify the goals of the system in the context of the user.

Click the image below to download my final interpretation. This is my completed affinity diagram.

What affinity diagrams tell us

The completed affinity diagram tells us several things about how our users interact with the Fake Kitchen Supply Store website:

• They want to find products.
• They want to find specific product information.
• They have difficulty finding store locations.
• They need directions to the nearest store.
• They need local store hour information.

With regards to the website redesign, this tells us that we need to focus on the presentation of: 

• Products
• Store information

Conclusion

The affinity diagram is more than just a tool for consolidating information. It also provides insight into themes and relationships that we can use to guide our designs. 

Hopefully, this series has provided you an informative glimpse into the power of effective user research. In Part 1, we discussed why user research in the preliminary stages of the project can help us design better web interfaces. Then, in Part 2, we talked about conducting ethnographic user research. The data we obtain from this research can be consolidated using the methods in Part 3.

In addition to affinity diagrams, there are numerous other tools and methods for data consolidation and analyzation. Regardless of what you do to understand your data, the final product is most affected by your ability to adapt your findings to the design. This is something that no research wizardry can compensate for, and I encourage you to look beyond the tools in the quest to create the perfect designs. However, gaining a better understanding of your users makes for an excellent starting point.

Thanks for participating in this series. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know! 

The one-on-one interview

The best way to study your users is to conduct an in-person one-on-one interview. Depending on the logistics of your project, this might not be possible or even warranted. For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that you can set up appointments with current and prospective users of your website. We will refer to these people as ‘informants’. 

How you go about obtaining your informants is up to you, but it usually involves dedicated networking, phone calls, e-mails, and persuasion. Your client might be able to help you reach out to their internal and external user base. 

Internal user base

The internal user base usually comprises of the client’s own employees. These people are relevant to your website only if they will be using it themselves. Examples include employee portals and intranets. These informants can usually be arranged with the help of your client because they have some control of their employees’ time. Explain to management that you need to schedule 30 minutes with several of their employees to ensure that you properly understand their website’s internal user base. 

They are paying you a lot of money, and it’s in their best interest to make sure that the final product properly serves their employees needs. Emphasize this and your clients will usually be happy to oblige with your needs.

External user base

The external user base usually comprises of the client’s customers and/or target audience. Your client might be able to help you reach out to them. If not, you will have to be resourceful. There are numerous methods for recruiting informants, but I will not be covering them here today.

Beginning the interview

It’s important to put your informant at ease. Reassure them that you’re not there to judge their work habits or their skills. You simply want to observe, ask questions, and learn. Also tell them that their help is greatly appreciated and that their efforts will directly go into creating websites that are better suited for people just like them. You should be gracious that they are giving you their valuable time and help.

Be organized

As with any other interview, you should have a list of questions and topics that you need to address. This helps you organize your thoughts. You may choose to have a pre-formatted question and answer sheet, or you may opt to just write down your questions on index cards and fill in your information on a blank notepad. Choose whatever method works best for you. 

Show and tell

Contrary to what you might expect, these aren’t your typical interview questions. Questions like “What do you think makes a website easy to use?” and “Do you prefer navigation on the left or on the top?” have no value because they inquire about solutions. This is called ‘solutioneering’, and it is not the dialogue that we want to establish.

Rather, we want our informants to show us how they work and tell us the reasoning behind their decisions. By doing so, we can understand their workflow, skills, and knowledge in a way that reveals the problems to us. Only by having a contextual understanding of users problems can we effectively come up with solutions. 

Establishing dialogue

We begin by having our informants perform some tasks on the existing client website. Alternatively, we may also have them use a similar website for the purposes of a competitive analysis.

Begin by having them use the website as they would normally. While some experts think you should run your informants through a predefined set of tasks, I believe it’s better to let your informants do whatever interests them. There are opportunities to learn something completely unexpected if you let people share what they want to share. Chances are, some of the predefined tasks will be covered during the process, and any that haven’t been touched upon can easily be revisited towards the end of the interview. 

As they work their way through the website, remind them to walk you through the process. Ask them to narrate it for you. For example, if they’re moving their cursor around the screen, they should be telling you why they’re doing so. Perhaps they’re searching for something, or maybe they’re confused. Similarly, if they click on a link, they should tell you the corresponding reasoning and goals. 

Digging deeper

People who are unfamiliar with this experience will usually give you uninformative responses. It’s your job to coax more out of them. If they say they’re looking for a link on the top navigation bar, ask them what particular word or phrase they had in mind. If they say they’re looking for “Store Locations”, ask them what information they’re hoping to find on that page. I know this seems like a rather trivial question—obviously, the person wants to find the store location closest to their house, right? 

Not necessarily. In addition to finding the nearest store location, they might be interested in finding driving directions to a particular store, the number of stores in the entire franchise, the number of stores locally, store hours, or a store’s telephone number. 

By unpacking these finer details, we gain insight and information that can later help us tailor the semantics, information architecture, layout, and other design elements to the goals and expectation of our users. 

Recording your data

Write down your observations and information during the entire process, but not so much that you lose track of what your informant is doing and saying.

Unfortunately, I really can’t help you with this. Everybody works in different ways. Find a solution that works for you and stick with it.

Why we’re doing this

Our motive isn’t just to know the actions that our users take, but also the goals that are driving these actions. We can’t possibly solve interface problems if we just see the actions because we can’t adequately identify where the process goes wrong. By understanding what users want to achieve, we can make educated proposals that solve the root of the problem. 

This blog entry isn’t meant to be the definitive how-to guide for ethnographic user research. I provide this as a basic introduction for those who are interested in the merits of user-centered design. Hopefully, I’ve given you a thought-provoking glimpse into the benefits of user research and its methodologies. For those who want to learn more about how to conduct these studies, I recommend Rapid Contextual Design by Karen Holtzblatt. I own this book myself and think it’s a decent resource.

That’s just about it for now, and thanks for your interest. Please join me next weekend for Part 3 in the “User Research For The Web” series, where I’ll show you how to consolidate and analyze your data.

The power of informed design

There are two schools of thought: those who think research data can help us make informed decisions to create better designs, and those who think data-driven design processes have killed innovation by taking the designer’s gut instinct out of the equation. I myself have rallied on behalf of subjective “gut design”, which is a little strange considering my formal experience with user-centered design practices. But although I recognize the pitfalls of the data-driven approach, I’m not going to disregard its ability to educate us about the people we’re designing the web for. 

Many tangible products have benefitted from research because it encourages designers to understand and empathize with the needs of users. Because the web is essentially an interface for accessing information, it’s only logical that the same methods can be applied with equally rewarding results.

Informed design can help us create web applications that better meet users’ needs. By doing so, we are helping people live their lives. Ultimately, that’s what our job is all about.

Questioning questionnaires 

There are several methods for obtaining information directly from users, including questionnaires and focus groups. I have no experience with focus groups, so I have no credible opinion on their effectiveness. However, I’ve created and analyzed many questionnaires before, and I’m aware of their popularity among research groups. 

That said, I don’t think questionnaires provide the best results. In my experience, the quality of the information you get in return for your time is pretty poor. The information is offered without context, and you end up with quantitative and qualitative data that reveals little about people’s goals and workflows. There are situations when questionnaires are the best tool, but in the case of understanding user experiences, there are better options.

Cognitive ethnography

An ethnographic approach to user research provides the context that questionnaires fail to deliver. Let me explain why.

Our intelligence is never wholly self-contained within our brains. We rely on objects in our environment to aid our memory and help us communicate. This is because our brains are efficient and only processes information that cannot be consumed directly from our environment. We don’t bother remembering phone numbers stored in our phone’s address book. We would rather tie a string around our finger than commit a to-do-list item to memory. Similarly, we don’t need to know the look of every stop sign around the world—we just know they’re red signs with bold white lettering placed at road intersections. By relying on surrounding information to serve as cues and guides for basic conceptual models, we significantly reduce the cognitive load on our brains. 

So human cognition involves interaction with people, objects, and environments. The combination of these three elements forms a system, and the goal of ethnography is to present qualitative and quantitative data in the context of the system. Ethnography is a tool that allows us to understand how knowledge is created, shared, and interpreted within social groups, and its methodologies are rooted in social anthropology.

How does this apply to the web? Well, think of the web as a system. Website interfaces provide cues and guides that tell us where to click, where to type, and how to get the information we need. The organization of the elements in this environment can facilitate or interfere with users’ tasks. These include:

• Navigational tasks—actions involved with getting around our environment. We like knowing where we are in the system, and we’re more comfortable when we’re provided the means to get to where we want to go. Consequently, we need navigation bars, intuitive information architecture, typographic hierarchy, attractive aesthetics, etc. Effective navigation helps us achieve our…
• Goal-oriented tasks—what we want to accomplish. Examples of goal-oriented tasks include going to my cousin’s wedding, baking cookies for tonight’s birthday party, finishing a financial report, etc. The internet contains the information that we need to accomplish these goals, respectively online mapping tools, a searchable directory of recipes, and last quarter’s earnings reports for a publicly held company.

Effective design seamlessly integrates these tasks so that users can accomplish their goals.

The design of a website that effectively meets users goals begins with a solid understanding of these types of tasks. Simply knowing that people want to find information through your website is not enough. To design effective interfaces, we need to have an in-depth understanding of user’s goals and actions in the context of their knowledge, skills, and environment. Ethnographic research helps us do this.

Be sure to check back this weekend when I post the second part in the “User Research For The Web” series, where I’ll teach you the basics of conducting ethnographic research. If you’d like any clarification on what I’ve discussed today or have any feedback for this series, I encourage you to leave a comment below. I’ll do my best to accommodate your questions and requests.

Stay tuned!

“” We (also) have an obligation to make sure that our work contributes to the greater good of society, however small or great the effects might be. It means inquiring about the meaning and intentions of the messages that we work with. Because we’re responsible for the communication of ideas between people, we have a corresponding responsibility to be a good citizen.

At first glance, this seems like a good way to contribute our moral two-cents to society. But, as noble as these intentions might seem, I think it might be a misguided attempt at imposing our ideals and egos on the world. To quote one of Stefan Sagmeister’s truisms,

“” Everybody thinks they are right.

In this sense, everybody’s work is a reflection of their own subjective ideals. But if we want to be moral in our practices, don’t we have the ethical obligation to be objective in our work? Regardless of whether we agree with the information our clients want us to present, are we really in the position to judge? Afterall, it’s just our opinion. Just because we don’t agree with the motives doesn’t mean we have the right to censor our clients’ voices. They have a right to present whatever they like, our own personal ideals be damned.

I suppose I’m questioning if, in our own self-righteous crusade to be more ‘socially responsible’, we might end up restricting speech. As designers, it’s our job to help people communicate their ideas. Wouldn’t we be killing open communication if we’re selectively censoring information based upon our own ideals?

Professional responsibility

Regardless of whether we work with print or the web, as graphic designers, our job is to facilitate communication. Clients have information that they want to share with other people, and people will consume this information to varying degrees based on accessibility, need, want, and emotion. Ideally, our work establishes a dialogue between the speaker and the audience, such that information is not only shared, but also exchanged. With this understanding, it’s our professional responsibility to help people communicate while maintaining an objective mind.

Social responsibility

But being objective doesn’t mean distancing ourselves from the social effects of our work. Because we’re in the business and art of communication, we need to realize that we have a huge impact on how people perceive information. And this information will be interpreted differently depending on how we present it. It’s not about making something look or work a certain way just because we like it. It’s about making the presentation honor the content.

This is how we respect people—by letting the original intent of their message shine through, uninhibited by the medium that supports it. Graphic design is just a vehicle for transferring ideas from point A to point B. Nothing more, nothing less. What matters are the ideas contained within.

Because it’s a very efficient, far-reaching vehicle, we need to be careful with what we’re communicating. While it’s important that we don’t manipulate the ideas, we need to make sure that the ideas we communicate cause no harm. In this sense, being a graphic designer means more than just creating visual work that meets the objectives of our clients. We also have an obligation to make sure that our work contributes to the greater good of society, however small or great the effects might be. It means inquiring about the meaning and intentions of the messages that we work with. Because we’re responsible for the communication of ideas between people, we have a corresponding responsibility to be a good citizen. From there, we can start making steps towards making this world a better place.

Aesthetics

WordPress 2.5 comes with a big dollop of visual polish that makes it look more like a full-fledged application than a website. Gone are the inconsistent font sizes, misaligned text and borders, and mash-up of a navigation menu. The presentation of the new interface is much cleaner, and it’s obvious that the folks at WordPress and Happy Cog have put a lot of time and effort into making everything perfect.

I think part of the cleaner look can be attributed to the new color palette. The lighter background colors used in the structural elements make everything feel lighter and allows the text and interface to breathe. It’s a welcome improvement over the dark blues and hard borders of the previous design. It allows me to focus on the content by making the structure of the page inconspicuous.

Navigation

But, maybe things are a little too inconspicuous. Whereas elements in previous versions created a visual tug-of-war for my eyeballs, the visual hierarchy in version 2.5 is a bit weak. This particularly bothers me in the navigation menu.

While the improved organization of menu items is fantastic, I think the lack of contrast between text and structural elements is a step backwards in usability. Although the contrast in the previous design was a bit jarring, it made the navigation menu conspicuous and easy to identify. In comparison, the text links in version 2.5 sit on a white background in close proximity to other elements, causing them to blend into the surrounding space: 

Further exacerbating this problem is the lack of contrast between font sizes—second-level links are slightly smaller than first-level links, but barely noticeable. There’s also the contradictory typographic hierarchy on the right-side navigation (Settings, Plugins, Users), where the second-level links are a larger font than their parent-level links:

To address these problems, I suggest using smaller text for secondary links and refining the surrounding whitespace. I’ve mocked up a possible solution below:

What do you think?

Layout

The layout is now predominantly horizontal, making it better suited to consumption on computer screens. As I’ve expressed before, the web is a horizontal presentation environment, and our designs should reflect this medium. Some argue that the new Write/Edit Screen should have maintained the old sidebar functionality, reasoning that frequently used functions such as Categories and Discussion should be placed near the top where they can be accessed without scrolling all the way down. I think this is just a matter of being used to the old layout and being subjected to a learning curve. 

Actually, I think the new layout makes much more sense. Previously, a mish-mash of commonly used functions were haphazardly split into the left and right columns. In version 2.5, all functions that affect the content and metadata of the post are in the left column, leaving only actions in the right column. When I say ‘actions,’ I’m referring to the functions of saving, publishing, and managing a post: 

So, in the new WordPress, I can write my content and set all the relevant metadata as I work myself down the left column. When I’m done, I scroll up to the right column to save, publish, and timestamp the entry. Compare this to the old way:

1. Write my content.
2. Go to the right column to check off the appropriate categories.
3. Scroll down to change the discussion options.
4. Move to the left column to add an excerpt.
5. Scroll back up to the right column to edit timestamp.
6. Move down a bit to the left column to save.
7. Move back up to the top of the text field to preview the post.

8. Move back down to publish.

But, for some people, design is also about love. Wim Crouwel, Richard Meier, Joshua Davis—their work isn’t just a result of client briefs and blind faith in objective data. Their work is also a reflection of their design philosophy and social ideals. Beyond having purpose, their work makes a statement about what design could be and shows how design can impact people and the environment.

You can almost taste the sweat and blood that some designers pour into their work. But the style that you taste isn’t for the sake of vain self-expression. Rather, any element of the designer’s style was the byproduct of his or her philosophy and convictions. The end-product looks and works the way it does because he or she genuinely believed it was the best solution, not just because “it looked cool” or “the data said so.”

The downfall of subjective design

A fish likely has no concept of dry. Likewise, a user who has only had poor experiences shouldn’t be expected to articulate a better experience. In this sense, data-driven processes are good because they’re not supposed to make the user suggest solutions. It’s strictly task observation and introspection, and it’s up to the designers to make sense of the data and create a solution.

Here’s my problem: data-driven processes have helped us define social constructs, relevant features, and improved usability at the expense of putting subjective design on the back burner. All the brouhaha and fawning over objectivity has kicked subjective “gut design” to the curb, relegating it to stereotypical design renegades in black T-shirts and full-body tattoos. “The user is always right. Subjective design is arrogant design.”

I think that attitude needs to change. We need to open our minds and understand that data-driven design is not the total solution.

Why love works

In an effort to make the design discipline a more systematic, rational, and—dare I say it—scientific profession, we’ve forgotten that design is about forging an emotional bond with the people we’re designing for. We can’t create these bonds by strictly basing our design decisions upon quantitative and qualitative data. Optimized content and effective IA aren’t going to make the user fall in love with the design because these are elements that should be transparent to the user. While it’s great that we have the tools to make design better from an objective goal-oriented perspective, we risk having our work wither into soulless, boring, bionic crap. People frequently use soulless objects, but it’s more difficult for them to develop an attachment on any emotional level.

And that’s what differentiates a mediocre product from an exceptional one—the effect that it has on its user. Design shouldn’t only be about goals and intuitive interfaces. Design should also be about how the experience transcends our objective needs. Successful products elicit positive emotional reactions from those who use them. To do this, we need to put passion back into the design process. We need to believe in our work and make sure our decisions are for the right reasons—not just because our informants said so. Simply put, it’s all about heart. If we can do this, it’s more likely that our designs will resonate with the people we create them for. After all, if we don’t love our own work, why would someone else?

If you notice any problems, please let me know. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Due to performance issues, I’ll be migrating this site to a new host over the next several days. Hopefully, it will be a smooth transition. In the meantime, please bear with me while the site is still served by my old provider.

Since I have a couple blog entries I’m really excited to share, this has thrown a huge wrench into my blogging mojo. I’m sorry for any inconvenience and annoyances the long load times and stalling may be causing, and cross my fingers that you folks stick around in the future.

I appreciate your patience, and thanks again for your time.

The power, flexibility, and extensibility of modern software and code is amazing in comparison to what was available just several years ago, but there’s still plenty of progress to be made. Developers are well aware of this, and they’re churning out work at a breakneck pace that other industries can only dream about. But are coding practices, back-end systems, and development techniques the only things we have to offer the next generation of computer users? Is progress on the web strictly limited to the low-level refinement of ones and zeros?

I certainly hope not. But, I can’t help but ignore that there’s more resources about development than there are about design. Googling “css3” returns a google of results, and I think it’s a fair indicator of the saturation and scope of people’s interest in the nooks and crannies of implementation and code. Meanwhile, finding good resources on graphic design for the web is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Am I just being picky with my information? Maybe. Is there a dearth of design discussion for the web? Absolutely.

Whine, rinse, repeat

The multitude of design galleries, critique forums, and design blogs is a start. Some discussions are enriching, while some aren’t so much discussions as they are “this site sucks” comments. And even then, the topics are usually about bending print design to the constraints of computer screens. Sure, CSS has its limits, and Flash isn’t without its niggles, but we’re at a point where designers can proudly translate their work to the web without compromising their vision. So why are designers still mired in the web’s troubled past? Perhaps it’s just a case of sour grapes mixed with the flaw of always wanting what we can’t have. Yeah, so print and motion designers have the tools and capabilities that web designers don’t have (yet). It’s unfortunate, but all we can do is hope for the best in the future. In the meantime, we need to accept the constraints of the web and work within them.

Nonetheless, despite the wealth of competent technologies that enable designers to make truly great web experiences, the industry isn’t flexing its design muscle as much as I would like it to. I assume it’s associated with the fact that design is a service industry, thus putting us in a position to reduce risk, maximize ROI, and deliver the “Wow!” for our clients, while occasionally (or frequently) compromising our own work in the process. But then again, if we’re compromising, perhaps we’re not really doing our job. True, some designers and clients are unreasonable with their expectations, but, in many cases, compromise is just the cheap way out of finding the real solution. Compromise holds back design, and, combined with people’s love affair with trendy techniques and styles, has turned the web into a landscape of rehashed ideas—many bad, some good, but few brilliant. To quote Armin Vit,

“” I could list projects in every category from logos, to annual reports, to magazine covers, to packaging, to typefaces, to opening titles that could be considered landmark projects… But when it comes to web sites, I can’t think of a single www that could be comparable—in gravitas, praise, or memorability.

Reluctantly, I agree with him. Of course, only partially, because I think there’s some fantastic work on the web. However, his general assessment is spot-on. Design on the web is a war of Photoshop and Flash skills rather than a discussion about principles.

Designers need to step up

It’s fun to see principles and practices carried from the paper to digital medium, but I think the time has come for us to respect the computer screen for what it is. Instead of focusing on how the web breaks typography, let’s focus on the doors that it opens. Instead of focusing on the difficulty of producing pixel-perfect layouts, let’s focus on the flexibility that it bestows upon us. Simply put, let’s focus on working with our assets. As designers, we should trust the code junkies to work their magic and provide us with tomorrow’s exciting tools and platforms. Meanwhile, it’s our job to push design forward. If we want to take the web to the next level, we need to stop crying about the past and dream about the future. We can begin by embracing the constraints and affordances of the web while reducing our propensity for compromise. From there, we can focus on refining our craft on an intellectual level.

Due to the wonderful resources made available by the design community, I’ve learned more during the past twelve months than I ever thought possible in such a short period of time. I thank everyone who has contributed design editorials, blogs, and tutorials. This is what Web 2.0 represents. It’s not about bright graphics, rounded corners, reflections, and gradients. It’s about connecting and sharing information, and I want to give back to the design community through this blog of my own. If you manage to learn something new or glean inspiration from my writing and my work, then please let me know—I’d love to know what I’m doing right. Likewise, if I’m doing something wrong, let me know, as well—I’m always looking for constructive criticism.

Thanks for listening, and I hope to see you around. Cheers!