I recently read Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City. It is a classic work of urban design. And was an inspiration for an excellent presentation given recently by Yale’s Patrick Lynch (no relation) on visual standards for our university’s web content. Concepts like paths, edges, landmarks, nodes and regions have as much relevance to organization of web content as they do to a cityscape.
In some ways game designers might feel like the Rodney Dangerfield’s of the software design world — they don’t get no respect. But they can have the last laugh, with an industry that has grown into a media leader. From a design standpoint there is much good here, with products that are engaging, require problem solving, can have complex storylines, but with intuitive user interfaces. Good games don’t require lengthy user manuals or training courses. And the The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses
The dubberly design group has some great concept maps on their site along with an interesting book: How do you design? Their stuff is great so just go over and take a look. Because I’m not going to talk about their stuff — at least directly. What is the real process of design? Design would seem to have a basic requirement that it serves some purpose. Ideally it makes the world better — at the very least it pays the designers well (adulation if not cold hard cash). How do we design well? In the software world we get Agile, Waterfall and all manner of other variants. Which one is right? How about none of them? And all of them?
In many ways the web has always been about interactivity — what is hypertext except a way for the user to interact with a web resource. But the rise of web based applications like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may indicate that the time has come to rethink how designers conceptualize web site design. Is there a shift underway from the notion of information architecture toward user experience? Certainly the importance of a nice homepage with its linked page hierarchy seems less useful to visitors in this age of Google searches. And users will more often consume content from multiple platforms, with the traditional computer-based web browser supplemented by smart phones and other mobile devices. Which makes it less likely users will experience the pages as the designers intended or follow the expected path through the site content. Perhaps the most important question is where should the focus be? On the content holders desire to present their information their way? Or on the users needs to access the information their way? It seems to me that on the internet betting against user wants and desires never really pays off.
As much as I love Apple and freely admit they make great products, I also have concerns with Apple’s closed-system approach. While there are some valid points to Apple’s ‘let us do the driving’ philosophy, I think users are better served when technology platforms are open. So how cool would a Google tablet be? After all, if they want to beat Windows at its own game, what better strategy than ripping off an Apple idea?
Keep Your Graphic Designer on a Short Leash in this month’s Website Magazine suggests that elements such as wild background colors, garish text, visual embellishments (eye candy) and animation/video distract website visitors from important content. In a case study of a redesign of the CREDO website they found an 84% improvement with a simplified design. The case study used a new service called AttentionWizard.com which uses computer algorithms to approximate eye tracking studies of a web site. The idea is these will reveal what point on the page the visitor’s eye should land on. If it is what you want them to see — like a buy now button — bingo, you are doing well. If their eyes don’t land anywhere, or on the wrong things it is time to make some adjustments. I thought it would be fun to compare the Yale and Harvard main websites using the service.
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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