Comments on: Forget about design

By: Dan Barber

Dan Barber — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:01:05 +0000

Design is everything, but as they say, less is more! The more you have on the page, for example fonts, menu’s, images, text the more the brain has to take in a process, less is always more!!

By: Mike Patten

Mike Patten — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:59:40 +0000

Douglas makes some good points about ease of navigation, but I think this is another example of content being king. Functionality is an imperative that a website should have, but people aren’t going to go to a site just because it’s functional… They are there for the well written articles, or the goldmine of educational information.

Functionality is important on webpages that people return to or view on a regular basis, this is true. Much more so than design.

Design is more important for something like Chris N.’s website (very nice btw), an online business card or portfolio. But if it’s a site like a blog, that I’m going to be returning to regularly, “fancy” or “eye catching” elements are less important. A site like Chris’ would be very annoying as a blog interface (no offence :). They can still benefit from design, however, in a more minimalist way. And as we all know, design for web is about more than just the “looks”.

But in the end, it comes down to content. You get a decent amount of traffic yourself, David. Your blog looks nice, and is easy to navigate . But I’m here for the information/point of view.

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:03:28 +0000

@David and Douglas
This is quite an intriguing topic, which, I have to admit, in a moment of epiphany, looking at the number of commentaries I’ve already made, pretty much proves the whole point of the post through itself.

And we could maybe have a separate post with Apple’s design vs functionality?

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:31:41 +0000

Great post David, definitely a interesting topic but you are correct and the Alexa rank proves it.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:20:56 +0000

In your case, Rob, you can easily eclipse him. I have no doubt about that.

Chris, when you mention Apple, Douglas puts into words what I was thinking, too. The functionality of Apple can be related to the content of your blog posts. Both take priority over aesthetics.

And Douglas, you’re too kind.

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:22:06 +0000

I think with Apple you forget that functionality and ease of use are first, which are not primarily built on aesthetics. It takes a physical / mechanical approach first. Secondarily, but no less important, are the visible aesthetics. How many dud phones are there on the market that look cool but have horrid software and UI? Why do you think the iPhone took off? Because it was so easy to use that it would cause people to laugh. But yes, “aesthetics in everything” right after “engineering to support everything”. Same goes for a website. What is google friendly ends up being people friendly for the most part (which is a needed qualifier). A beautiful website with poor SEO loses to the ugly website with great SEO every time. When the two are put together you end up with….davidairey.com….where the beauty is suited to the task and not superfluous.

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:06:22 +0000

@ David
Yeah, they sell their point of view, that’s true.
In which case, the most important thing that needs careful design is the format of the text itself and the coherence of the topics.
But if you sell a physical product, tables might be turned. Take Apple, for example.

I think a careful graphic support shows that you care about your readers and want to make their experience on your website as pleasant as possible.

I guess I embrace the “aesthetics in everything” view, even if it’s just a few lines in a blog.
The only time when this may prove to be counter productive is when the effort put into the content doesn’t match the energy put into design.

By: Rob Cubbon

Rob Cubbon — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:28:11 +0000

This is definitely true. Forget blogs, look at the web’s most popular sites: Amazon, eBay, Craig’s List, Google. Have they won any design awards? And thanks for making me think I’ll be as successful as Matt Cutts one day!

By: Andrew Keir

Andrew Keir — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:53:21 +0000

That had crossed my mind David. Oh well, one day ;)

By: Kiren

Kiren — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:05:21 +0000

I’m much more of an artist than a designer, so I think these sites look very bland. But looking closely at the subject matter of these sites, I probally wouldn’t come accross them on the web with my regular surfing, None of my interests