Last year when I wrote my most popular entry (traffic-wise) Myspace: Is ‘ghetto’ a design choice? I never thought that the idea of ugly design would take such a strong hold within design discussions this year. For some reason no matter where I turn I find an article about MySpace and its ugly designs and the majority of the articles come to the conclusion that the site is successful because it is ugly. Each article seems to cite other major players such as eBay and Craigslist as examples of successful ugly design.
Let’s be honest though and admit that there are two kinds of simple designs that you can produce:
- Ugly
- Beautiful
In either case if you are offering what the user wants they will use the site. It never was about the ugliness of a site, it was about its usability, community and a couple of other things. If you really think that the reason Facebook will never reach the membership levels of MySpace because it uses a pretty design then you would be wrong. Facebook has a more targetted audience, doesn’t cater to the music crowd and doesn’t allow the customization of profile pages as much as MySpace does.
Scoble calls it anti-marketing design and it’s great to see someone with no design background or any true interest in design (see I had to see “true interest in design” so I could include myself) breakdown why anti-marketing design trumps good design. According to him I am guessing that WalMart is more successful than Target because their stores are trashier. Not that this quote has that much to do with this entry, but I had to include.
But, back to the anti-marketing design. I think I accidentally fell into this as well. My design is ugly. Anti-marketing. Why? Because I wanted to make it fast. I didn’t choose a pretty font because doing so would have added a little bit of weight to my CSS file. Does this matter? I think it does. I read a LOT of blogs on my cell phone and mine loads WAY faster than many blogs out there.
Classic. Moving on. Wait, I have another one.
Maybe MySpace is kicking blogging’s behind because most blogs are simply too pretty!
Damn, everytime I try to move on he gives me another one.
If it’s ugly is authentic. Not corporate. It is good. No?
Okay, I am finally done. Doesn’t anyone have any apple-to-apple comparisons between ugly design and good design? In all comparisons it’s easy to pinpoint why ugly may win over good, but is there ever a case where all things are equal and success comes down to the design of the product?
For an even better analysis of this whole “ugly is wonderful” theme, I suggest you read this detailed article over at Disambiguity.
Anyone out there have some suggestions for great looking fonts I could try out for the headers on this site? I plan on making the move to sIFR and am searching for the hotness. If you know of anything please let me know. Of course I prefer free fonts, but if it’s high-quality I would be willing to shell out some cash for it. And don’t forget to link up the font so I don’t have to go searching.
Design for the needs of your website. That’s the thought that continued to run through my mind last week as I became more and more frustrated with the Information Design of this site. I loved the previous design, which was a collaboration between myself and Rundle, but unfortunately I wanted to take this site into a new territory.
Over the years I have found that I have painted myself into a corner with regards to how I handle content. I wasn’t “allowed” to post multiple times a day because I was so focused on having a great discussion with a single entry and multiple posts would hinder that. However, I also came across so many different sites and articles that I wanted to share my thoughts on, but obviously couldn’t for the reasons just mentioned.
Then it hit me. This is actually my site.
As stupid as that sounds I am sure I am not the only who has prevented themselves from doing something with their sites because we wanted to please the masses. What I had to find was a middle-ground that kept the old Whitespace intact, but ushered in the Whitespace that I wanted and I think I have accomplished that with the new two column design.
From an IA standpoint I am really pleased with what I have now because it merges the best of both worlds. I can maintain writing (improved) articles, while also exploring topics that only need a couple of words. Aesthetically I wouldn’t be surprised if Rundle comes in to offer to polish it up a bit (and of course I will let him), but you know my love for simplicity, so I like what I have now.
The only other major difference is how the individual pages are one column as opposed to the two column design of the homepage. This keeps the focus on the content, even though it’s probably not the best option if I wish to encourage readers to explore the site. That goal can occur with a well-designed footer I believe so that will be the next step.
There are a couple of little things that need to be finished such as the pages in the navigation need to be written, the comment form needs styling and I will more than likely implement sIFR for the headings because there are some wicked fonts out there I want to try out.
I feel I have a lot more freedom now with regards to how I handle this site and that should lead to a much improved site. Now the teeny tiny “bullshit” entries that some of you hate will go under notes where you can ignore them if you like. Amazing what a couple more options can do to things.
Jeremy “Two First Names Make One Cool Name” Keith shares his thoughts on communities and I can understand his point about groups being their own worse enemies, but I don’t think individual comments represent group wisdom. The Group Wisdom in Newsvine, Digg and other such sites is the fact that they can show which stories should be the most popular. The ensuing discussions that occur in the comments are simply individual thoughts and therefore should not be representative of group think.
This doesn’t hide the fact that comments shouldn’t be opened up for everything and this is clearly reflected on Jason Kottke’s site where he is very selective with which entry has comments open.
Newsweek has an interesting article on the new wisdom of the web where they showcase the Web 2.0 darlings and what makes them successful. Obviously it centers around community and that seems to be the only way to make something when you are going for the general consumer facing website.
The alternative of course is the 37signals old school methodology of creating a product that people are willing to pay for.
Make sure to read the article if you are at least interested in seeing how the mainstream media views the web that we have been entrenched in from the beginning.
It seems that every successful web company has a quirk about their website and surprisingly many of those quirks trace back to ugly design. Adrian Shaughnessy explores the issue of good design and Google’s logo and provides many choice quotes to go along with his analysis.
…Google’s financial gigantism places it alongside some of the biggest corporations in the world. Odd then, that it should have a folksy logo that looks more like a school project than the mark of a global corporation.
Hopefully I can will myself to explore this issue more indepth because I had a million thoughts while reading the entry. Now I just need to put them into words on the screen.
When I first read Caterina’s bad time to start a company I knew that I couldn’t have been the only one who disagreed with her. I was going to write a drawn out entry, but it seems the people in the comments have voiced many of my own opinions along with David over at 37signals.
There is never a bad time to start a good company in my opinion, but there is always a bad time to start a bad company.
Thankfully Caterina updated the entry:
I was talking here about consumer-facing Web 2.0 companies based in San Francisco and the Valley, which bears repeating. Given that 9 out of 10 companies fail, I just think the odds are getting worse.
Last night while I was driving I saw a billboard saying that tomorrow’s Florida lottery was for an estimated $15 million and like most people (I’m sure) thought how nice it would be to have that much money. But then I thought if it was nice to win that much money wouldn’t it be better to work towards that goal and why stop at $15 million? What number of dollars would satisfy me and was I even attempting to work towards that goal?
I know not everyone is infatuated with money, but I am pretty sure most of you out there have a magic money number in your head that you think about occassionaly. The number where you tell yourself:
All I need is $X and I would be set for the rest of my life. Everything would be so much easier.
But how many of us are really working to get there and how come everyone isn’t doing so? Doing design work was fun, but in the back of mind I always told myself that the rewards were limiting. There was only so much I could make due to time and resources. Same thing applied when I worked in a corporate job.
Still with all this in mind, for some reason last night was the first time that I realized I still really wasn’t working towards hitting my magic number and honestly just that thought helped to kick my own ass a bit. This of course not only applies to just money, but to anything we wish for. What prevents many of us for really pushing towards our wishes. You want more web fame? Go for it. You want 1,000 readers for your site? Go for it.
But still, many of us don’t go for it. Many of us are content with staying in our own boundaries, our comfort zone so to speak. Since it’s Friday and I know nobody is really doing any work I suggest you look at the things you wish for and ask yourself if you are actually striving for them and if not, how come?
One of the surprises that I came across while attending SXSW was the amount of designers who didn’t blog. This confused me because I always figured that if you were trying to do freelance work and are just starting off it would only make sense to blog. Blogging is free marketing and although it takes a small chunk of time to do that is part of the business.
One of the biggest issues seems to be that many people feel that everything has been discussed already, which obviously isn’t true. How many debates could we revisit from the past? How many sites on the web are there ready for critique? Have you talked about your coding style? How do you manage your projects?
Even if you talk about what has already been written before, as long as you place your own ideas into the pot it is original. Also, too many people believe that your blog has to be successful for its purposes to be served. Even if just 50 people visit your site, that is 50 potential clients and let’s not forget the chance of someone coming across your site via search engine looking for services.
Another great thing about blogging is that it helps to reinforce what you already claim to know. Too often we assume we are knowledgable about a subject simply because it is in our head, but try putting it down on paper or the screen to see how well you can explain it. That will really show how well you understand a topic. Your blog doesn’t have to have comments and doesn’t even have to be public. Do it for yourself first and foremost and if you want to help your business do it for that second.
So again, if you are not overflowing with clients and work, can you afford not to blog?
I think the time has come where Google has lost its shine. No longer are the products and services that Google launch breath-taking or really newsworthy in my opinion because they all seem to follow Yahoo’s path. Gmail and Google Maps were a step above and beyond what was currently available, but besides that what else has there been?
Yesterday saw the launch of Finance Google and instead of taking strides in the design department they fall a bit short from Yahoo’s offering I believe when it comes to homepage design, but knock a homerun with the internal pages.
Homepage
I don’t know if there is a term for this in the design world, so I am simply going to say that the page has no “balance”. From the beginning you get a page where the leftside is overloaded, while the right is exposed with a huge gap and all of this occurs above the fold. I understand that recent quotes would allow for the space to become filled if the user chose to do so, but that much white space becomes a distraction for me.
You are given the ability to add stocks to your portfolio, but you are only aware of that if you take the time to look at the upper-right portion of the page and for some reason the stocks in your portfolio aren’t shown on the homepage. Google definitely has the knowledge to give users the option of showing either recent quotes or portfolio quotes so it is kind of confusing why this option is not available from the start.
Looking at the Market Summary box, the graph changes when you hover over the different markets. The problem with this though is that this feature is not readily apparent to the user. I just happened to move my mouse over that way and discovered that there was a hover effect. Why is this kept a secret and how can Google let the users know that hovering changes the graphs?
Company Pages
This is where Google Finance gives the competition a run for the money. The first thing you may notice is the difference between a fixed width design for the homepage versus a liquid design for the internal pages. I suppose the reason for this is to allow for the graphs to become as wide as the user wants since that is the main focus of the page. Like Google Maps there is a lot of cool AJAX (using Macromedia’s Flash/JavaScript Intergration Kit) action going on and I really like how points are marked on the graph signifying a news event that is linked to the right of the chart.
Google makes the same mistake it made on the homepage with regards to hovering in the Management box. Hovering over the names brings up more information and the only way to know this is to either understand what the tiny blue arrow means or to accidently hover over the names. There definitely has to be a better way to handle this, possibly with a better icon.
As for the rest of the page it is what you would expect from Google, simple and bland (almost like this site). Not really a bad thing, but on a page with so much information a little more flair would make it easier to read and use I believe.
Design and the Future
Design doesn’t make or break a company when the product already is a failure, but as more and more companies being to offer more of the same products and services or their competition is able to quickly match their offerings, design can easily become the determining factor for a user. That is why I am very surprised not to see more emphasis placed on design by Google to really entice people away from Yahoo or any other financial website. I am sure there is a gameplan in there somewhere that I just don’t know of, but you have to wonder how long can you wait before it takes effect?
