Computing

There seems to be two different philosophies in regards to designing a web page. One states that essentially the page should be content based, top-down, with out any framing, and that everything should be accessible with as few clicks as possible. The other is that web pages should be pretty, with neat-o gizmo’s and features that look cool. This is the “graphic artist’s” approach to web page design.

In my opinion (check the title of this part of my web site) a combination of both is in order. I have seen many designs that put as much as possible on each page so that you only have to click once to get anywhere. The problem is that the more successful you are in reducing click count, the more difficult your page will be to use. People have difficulty focusing on important content if there is no distinction between it and anything else. There needs to be contrast. Something that sets the important stuff apart.

The “graphic artist’s” approach can suffer from the opposite problem. There is sometimes too much contrast. If stuff is buried too deep, then it becomes just as hard to find.

A site must look good because that will really help it be remembered by the user, and make it more fun to navigate (yes, grown ups doing serious business enjoy nice websites too), but not at the cost of having to dig for every piece of information or link. To that end, a web page needs to be designed around it’s content. It needs to sacrifice a few clicks now and then to make the content easier to process. Accessing the info is only half the battle. If you can’t read it, you’ve lost the war. This all means logical groupings of your data, so that even if it is not on the first page, it is easy to figure out how to get it. Then, make it easy to figure out how to get that info. This is where the graphic artist can come in and have some fun designing, but not too much fun. What ever else you put on your page, don’t let it detract from your content. The content is why you built the page in the first place, so why mask it with the frills.

I guess what I am trying to say is that what ever path you go down for design, remember moderation. If you go to far in one direction or the other, you are most likely making it harder for the user.