Great design a waste of time and energy?
01 Jan 2008 | Angie H
A recent article over at Web Design from Scratch draws generalizations about design. The author, Ben Hunt, caught my attention pretty quickly and in all honesty, after reading his first few sentences, I thought I'd be agreeing with his article in its entirety. But the opposite happened. Hunt makes claims and generalizations that I believe could confuse and misinform clients and young designers, as well as contribute to the poor view many already have of the design industry in general. At the risk of sounding like one of the "elitist" designers Hunt describes and seems to deplore, the article is full of contradictions, broad statements and an overall theme that designing something "good enough" is, well, good enough and going any further is a waste of time and energy.
Hunt begins with a true but obvious point that good, successful design on the web will include how easy it is to get to where you want to go and how easy it is to get your bearings when you first get there. It's what he writes next that becomes worrisome.
The vast majority of design isn't about making stuff look good. It's about making something that does a job well. When it comes to the top line, sex really doesn't sell. Shiny Web2.0-effect graphics, professional-looking logos and trendy fonts really don't factor...
True, yet not fully. Design isn't only about how it looks. This is a mistake many people make, including designers. But the looks do matter regardless of what spin you try to put on it. I've heard from clients whose customers have told them that they chose our client purely because their site was nicer looking and easier to use than the competitor. This isn't coincidental. Design involves a delicate but crucial balance between form and function, regardless of medium. I can point you to various sites without the shiny graphics, trendy fonts, multiple gradients and rounded corners that fail miserably in both design and usability.
How "jazzy visuals" are defined by Hunt can only be clarified by him. But that they're secondary isn't always necessarily true. I don't recall who said it (I think it may have been Cameron Moll), but a complete design has just enough supporting elements to the point where if you take any element out of the equation it fails to communicate the message. This is Art/Design 101. It's called gestalt.
(By the way, if anyone can tell me what Hunt means by "professional-looking" logos, please do clue me in.)
Hunt tries to back up his point about leaving out "jazzy visuals" by stating that if you take a few design classes, learn the principles of design and get to work, you'll produce something that has "natural beauty" to it. This is debatable. Back in school I remember a couple of my classmates who really struggled. They were learning the same thing the top designers in our class were, yet they were failing at creating even remotely good design. (And all our design professors were, at some point or another, professional designers, mind you.) My point here isn't to malign these people but to point out that simply taking classes won't (necessarily) do it. I'm not saying that it's impossible. On the contrary, I think the pie is big enough for anyone wanting a piece. But skill, thorough understanding, and innate talent do play a role.
As I've mentioned previously on our blog, design is about communication. And this is one point where Hunt gets it spot on. But his argument breaks down with two points he makes. First, he says "Much of the time, good design is good enough." While I'm sure he means well, this is a dangerous statement to make in the context of his definitions of good and great design. Is good design good enough? It may be, but without expanding further Hunt makes it sound like designers aim for good enough and no higher. I'm pretty confident this is not the case with most respectable designers. It's his second point that really throws a wrench in.
The great news is that the art of simple web design is accessible to everyone. You don't have to be a gifted graphic artist to design a really good web site. There are formulas you can learn to know where to put stuff on a page, what nav to use, how to write accessible copy, and how to space everything out. The skills are available to everyone who wants to learn them.
There is no shame in reusing a formula that works. If I follow a Gary Rhodes recipe and produce a delicious meal, haven't I delivered a great experience? Would it be better for me to make up my own recipe? (The only benefit is likely to be for my own ego.)
Those two paragraphs pain me every time I read them. While they're not false statements they're definitely misleading.
Anyone can use formulas. But that's not really design. That's following a recipe that may or may not turn out the way it should. The difference between cooking and design, however, is that no formula is one-size-fits-all. Each project and and each client are different. A formula that worked with project A will unlikely work for project B or C. Why? Because each project demands unique needs and solutions. Further, I can't imagine a single client forking over a few thousand dollars for "design by formula".
Hunt's point that there are web designers that believe you need original and exciting design to have a great website design isn't entirely false. (Who this "significant minority of web designers" is is another question altogether.) But isn't originality and uniqueness part of what many businesses are after? If by "original" Hunt means 100% new and never done before (in the same way the iPhone is original), that's one thing. Doing what everyone else is doing is something else entirely.
The fact is that 99% of the time, provoking thought and stopping hearts are the enemy of good design.
Where does this statement even come from? I simply don't understand how provoking thought is the enemy of good design. If design is communication, isn't thought a natural part of that? Provoking thought doesn't always mean super-important social or world issues. Provoking thought can simply be making someone well, think a bit differently about a product.
Hunt goes on to state that most website have different goals: to sell, inform, promote, build a brand. yet all of those things in almost any context will stimulate thought. If someone is selling you something you're generally going to stop and think about it in some fashion. Yet, this is exactly what Hunt says is the enemy of good design.
Hunt's own approach to design is unfortunate:
My own approach is not to invest creative energy in solving a problem if there is already a conventional solution that works.
This kind of thinking creates repetitive, stale design. Clients won't get what they pay for. They should expect creative energy to be used in their project. Hunt is right that web designers need to be careful when trying something new, but just about every point in his article insinuates that trying something new is not a good idea at all. Dont' get me wrong, there are definitely things that don't need to be re-innovated, so to speak (such as the navigation links on a website). But that doesn't mean we should turn off our creativity altogether.
Hunt seems to be confusing design of functional components of a website with the overall look and feel, and perhaps the message. Functionally, there are things on a site that don't need to be messed with. But the look and feel is open to creativity, limited only by the scope of the project as dictated by the client and designer together. Overall, he's making it sound like trying to achieve great design is a waste of time and energy. Good should suffice. And it might on most occasions. But there's nothing inherently wrong with trying more than just "good enough". The differentiator is knowing when it's appropriate and when it works. It's the continuous push toward great design that makes us better designers, that keeps our work from being the same over and over again. Not pushing is a flat out cop-out.
