Web Design Under The Public Eye

October 16, 2003 | 9 Comments

Dave offers up some more thoughts and details on the wonderful work he’s done for the Mozilla.org site.

Reading this got me to thinking about the pressure some designers put on themselves by sharing their work and details about it with the public on blogs and whatever. I’ve done this in the past and I’m sure will do again, but to be honest, it can be a bit dicey.

Most designers will tell you they appreciate any feedback, and for the most part this is true, but when you put your work out there you have to take the good with the bad. And, yeah, I’ll say it — sometimes the feedback you get isn’t helpful at all and sometimes it’s just downright nasty.

Now I’m not trying to speak for Dave here, but with a pretty major site launching recently myself (and yes, y’all will know about it soon), I can identify with him when he talks about having to have a think skin.

The issues a designer and developer have to tackle when building out a “real” site, whether as a volunteer or for money, can be quite different then what we can handle on our personal sites. Dave talks about markup and validation and I know exactly how he feels. It’s damn hard to get a site that was built on legacy code to validate and if you can get to 70%, let alone 90% in just a few weeks you should be commended for your efforts.

Hell, you should get a pat on the back for even making the attempt, there are many out there who don’t care about that stuff at all. Anyway, my hat goes off to all those designers and developers out there who put themselves, at considerable risk to negative feedback, out there everyday and let us learn from and be inspired by their work.

Filed under: Web Design

Comments

1. patrick h. lauke said:

i recently completely recoded our university site salford.ac.uk. still lots of issues to sort out, but yes, i decided to launch it as a public beta and then wait and see what issues crop up.
i can sympathise completely with the “thick skin” comment. heck, i had to please both our external and internal customers (academics, etc) - and yes, some of them still running Netscape 4.7x on an old beat-up P100 at 640x480. try explaining “standards compliance” to them…
having the code for all pages drop by an average of about 35-40%, plus not having to do separate “for print” pages, made it all worth though…

Posted on October 16, 2003 04:00 PM | #

2. Dave S. said:

There are a ton of special-interest groups you have to satisfy: Accessibility advocates, Usability experts, Markup and code geeks, those using all possible browser/OS combinations, and, oh, of course the client/users themselves.

Not to mention that everyone’s a critic when it comes to the design.

It’s hard to balance. But standards-based design goes a LONG way toward getting things right the first time.

Posted on October 16, 2003 04:11 PM | #

3. Dave S. said:

Oh, and where are my manners? Thanks Keith! Adjectives like “wonderful work” go a long way to keeping me sane amongst all the bug reports.

Posted on October 16, 2003 04:14 PM | #

4. Matt said:

Dave - since you have comments turned off on your site for the Mozilla entry, and I’m too lazy to e-mail…really nice work on the redesign. Getting your work out there on such a large scale is something you should be really proud of. Congratulations.

Posted on October 16, 2003 04:20 PM | #

5. Egor Kloos said:

As Dave suggests it was not his idea to release the design this early. In my view it was a mistake on Mozillas part to do so in such an early stage of development. Many ended up having a go at him and Mozilla, including myself. It may have been unfair but you only get a few chances to get it right and that’s why timing is so important. Luckily Mozillas user base is tiny so that the damage is limited.

Mozilla will have a very difficult job in repositioning themselves for their current users and introducing themselves to their new users. And it will be the new users that Mozilla will to need focus on. Most will have never heard of Mozilla and many will confuse it with Netscape. That’s some though nut to crack.

Posted on October 16, 2003 05:22 PM | #

6. huphtur said:

last week i finished the new emerica site (skateboard footwear). which is the first commercial site in the skateboard industry following webstandards. i wrote down some details on the redesign.

Posted on October 16, 2003 07:03 PM | #

7. Keith said:

Congrats on the emerica site, huphtur. I saw that earlier today, nice work. The fact that you even attempted Web standards on a site like that is pretty cool, it seems like too many of those types of sites go with the all Flash or some similar approach.

Posted on October 16, 2003 08:45 PM | #

8. huphtur said:

thanks keith,
it has taken me a long time to make the marketing and design department realize that flash is not the answer for having a “good” site. they finaly understand that the xhtml/css approach is much more flexible, cost effective, etc, and that it will provide the skaters with the perfect brand experience.
let’s hope the rest of the skateboard industry catches on.

Posted on October 16, 2003 10:14 PM | #

9. Scrivs said:

It can be very difficult to step up in front of the public and say hey check out this new design that I just did. Many people are just haters and others will tell you that you did a good job. When you do volunteer work for a huge org like Mozilla then I really see how you could possibly shout any criticisms towards the developer. I don’t think it was a bad idea on Moz’s part to release the site in beta because all of us web geeks will test it to the extreme and let them know what needs to be fixed. Once everything is worked out it can be released upon the general public and we can tell our friends to go get it.

If you use the browser this is a great way to contribute.

I myself have posted a couple designs public and fortunately if I have received any criticism it has been very constructive. I also think that it is important to use class when presenting it. Saying something along the lines of “check out the greatest site ever built” will definitely lead to harsh words. I make my designs and my stories with my clients public because hopefully someone who is not as experienced as me (and I am pretty much still a rookie) will get something out of it and the vets in the game can give me some pointers.

The web is an open medium meant for sharing, but it does take balls to do so. Dave had the balls to do it and he is obviously proud of the work he has done and rightly so. In the short amount of time he had, the work is amazing. Given more ample time to plan I have no doubt he could have created a masterpiece. Well done.

Sorry this is so long…I just don’t know what happened :)

Posted on October 17, 2003 04:15 PM | #