Opinion in Web Design

1. Jon Hicks said:

That’s really interesting - I thought I was alone in my thoughts about redlabor, its reasurring to know you thoughht that too. Mind you, I’ve been on the other end of that - “Hey! Zeldman linked to your site, and it doesn’t even work in 800x600! You suck!”.

Perhaps everyone is just too ‘nice’ to critiscize others work? Maybe there is a unspoken need to praise and point out the good sites in order to raise the profile of CSS based sites?

I agree - some balance is needed.

Posted on January 8, 2004 02:58 AM | #

3. Guy Carberry said:

I was surprised to see that particular site getting bigged up so massively. There are thousands of much more interesting visualy based designs linked from NetDiver. However, Zeldman is merely saying that he wished that he designed the site. He likes it a lot - it appeals to his taste and I guess he’d do something similar if he could.

There are plenty of sites out there that rip designs to pieces. Web Sites that suck springs to mind (there are others im sure). Accessify got into hot water for criticising the RNIB relaunch a few months back. Ian Lloyd rightfully pointed out that the new design was a terrible example of a site. You then had people telling him not to throw stones when his own sites wern’t up to scratch. And I guess that is the fear - criticise somebody else’s work and watch the negative critiques of your own work come flooding in.

A balanced argument for the good and bad points of a site (rather than just the good points) could be a good idea though.

Posted on January 8, 2004 05:23 AM | #

5. Jeremy Flint said:

I think it all boils down to personal taste.

Some people like the deconstructed look. I used to go for it when I was in school and David Carson was king of design.

Some people don’t like it.

I was kind of “eh” about it. Sure it looks great, but is it really any different from the way most other CSS sites are designed? lots of images on top of a nice looking background image.

So i guess it is really more about the style of the imagery than the CSS that is making most people give this site the big up.

As for the opinions, I enjoy getting opinions, whether good or bad. They help me make better decisions in the future projects. But, if they come without merit, without justified reasoning, then they are usually discarded.

Posted on January 8, 2004 07:07 AM | #

7. Nick Finck said:

Art is subjective, design is objective.

I have to agree with your points here Keith. While I do get my fair share of “you suck!” emails that seem to come out of the blue and often from a spoofed email address, I do think the informative negative criticism is a very useful tool.

I must admit, I rarely see this via site feedback… the feedback is either overly negative or overly positive, but hardly informative much less constructive.

The reader survey, however, seems to draw out some more insightful remarks among the majority of non-constructive positive feedback (“you rock!”) and I find I learn more by listening to those insightful negative remarks than I ever possibly could from my peers.

Why? Because my peers want to encourage me, to keep me going… they know I spend my own free time to try and give back with little in return and they encourage me to keep doing what I am doing.

I guess with the survey there is a true since of anonymity behind it all. I don’t know who says what unless they state their name or give me their email in their comments. And I don’t think I really want to know who they are, I just want to know what they have to say. Giving them the anonymity the survey does leads to more honest feedback.

Of course design should never be driven by qualitative information alone, it must also be driven by quantitative information. What I mean by quantitative is log analysis and other sources of actual numbers that show the negative or positive impacts of design changes.

Posted on January 8, 2004 10:25 AM | #

9. Keith said:

Of course a site like redlabor should get it’s props – in the CSS vault and elsewhere. It’s just all I see are props.

Maybe it could be said that “man redlabor is an awesome visual site. It’s great look but I think, since it’s a Web site and not a poster, they could have done better by taking the text out of images and using more CSS to style it.”

Or something. I don’t know.

I guess I’m just saying that there is really something to be said for a lot more constructive criticism in the Web design community.

If all we have to go on is opinion, every site is a great site. You can bet your ass the person who created it thinks so (well maybe not always) and who’s to say their opinion isn’t valid. It may be uninformed, as in the case of a newbie, but it’s still valid.

I’d like to see the leaders of our industry, you know those guys with informed opinions and the knowledge and experience to back those opinions up, speak out every once in a while and let us know where things might be over designed or inappropriate for a particular audience or whatever.

Posted on January 8, 2004 11:38 AM | #

11. Dunstan said:

Although I didn’t express is very well, and it’s easy to say this in highsight, this is one of the things that bothered me when I wrote my little blurb on ‘King Blog’. We’re all so nice to each other! :op

I, for example, would love to say that Zeldman’s new redesign looks horrible and amateurish, but I don’t (except there and in one other comment on another site).

I guess the reason I don’t point out some of the more negative aspects of well known sites is that I figure a) they have some good reason for doing what they did [1], or b) they should know better, so buggerum.

I feel much happier expressing my opinions to people just starting out than I do to those who are better established. Maybe I should just stick my chest out now and then and say what I think in a constructive way?

I must say, apart from a few javascript bugs and two css layout bugs, I’ve received no ‘negative’ feedback on my site at all - I often wonder if people have been caught up in the “Here’s this new site, praise it” whirlwind that sweeps around the web, or if they genuinely like the site and have nothing bad to say about it.

I’d love some feedback (nicely put of course) about some of the aspects of my site that could be improved. How else can I make it better? How else can any of us create a better user experience if we get no negative feedback?

[1] it’s tough to criticise other sites because you don’t know about the stuff that’s gone on in the background - I tried to click deeper into the redlabor site and was faced with a page consisting only of two graphics that took an age to load… so I left, along with the thought “Crappy site design, despite that nice front page”. I’d love to point out to them that their design drove me away - but I’m sure they must have some reason for building the site like they did. Maybe I’m not their target audience?

Posted on January 8, 2004 12:19 PM | #

13. Christian said:

I think Coward’s comments illustrate how hard it is to criticize in a constructive way, and, hence, why so few people do so.

For example, if the design is ugly, how so? Is the logo poorly done, is the layout unappealing - what are the elements that are conspiring to produce an ugly site?

How is the site boring? To my mind, this would reflect the content rather than the design? Would it benefit from some interactivity, games, videos, etc? What would make it ‘interesting’ to you?

“The colors are bad.” Which ones? Why? Do they clash? Are they inappropriate for the subject-matter?

I would say to Coward, well done for being brave enough to post some criticism, but try to take it to the next level by providing some explanation to support your comments - i.e. don’t forget the ‘constructive’ part.

What possible action could anyone be expected to take based on your comments (except to ignore them)?

Posted on January 8, 2004 01:14 PM | #

15. Quasi said:

I agree that critiquing each other’s designs only helps us. I like having my wife look at my designs. She tells me what she likes, what she doesn’t like, and gives me suggestions on how to make them better. Every time she does, my designs improve. Her thoughts and ideas force me to think of things differently, from a perspective other than my own.

If we as professionals can do the same for each other our designs and skills will only get better.

Posted on January 8, 2004 03:59 PM | #

17. Ian said:

OK, here’s my NZ$0.02 on your Drowning Prevention site.

Basically, it’s good in that its purpose is easy to see, it loads quickly, and is easy to navigate.

There are a few things I find distracting though:

1) I first viewed it on Safari, (on my aging iMac, 1024x768 with about 13.5” viewable). The links are borderline legible (I have to squint quite a bit). (OK, it’s easy enough to increase the font size, for some reason I find I only do this when it becomes almost impossible to read, not merely uncomfortable.)

2) The menu only goes about half way down the screen (again, the font height on Safari, and Mozilla on my PC seems less than that of IE6 on myPC). With the longer pages, I find the way that this only “frames” about half of the text quite distracting. For me, it would be much better if the sidebar extended all the way to the bottom of the content, at least giving it a consistent left frame.

3) The masthead image seems uncomfortably glued to the top of the window. Perhaps a slight top margin and a frame around the entire content/sidebar area would help. With a little more top margin before the heading, and maybe a slight right margin, perhaps?

Mostly, when I switch to 800x600, these issues are mitigated (the browser window provides a more comfortable frame, and the sidebar almost fills the screen vertically) - but I wouldn’t do that when browsing normally, even if the site designer is impertinent enough to suggest it!

I guess it’s easy to be an armchair critic. (I’m working on my on site, honest! I got about half way through, though, and figured that creating static sites with global navigation schemes by hand-coding links was way too tedious. I’m not sure what all you “real” web designers/developers out there use to get around that problem, but I’m building my own “website compiler” to solve the problem my way! Whether or not this will be a useful tool or some dingbat idea left to collect dust is something I’m yet to discover … at the very least, I’m figuring that the ability to process XML in Java, and use XSLT is a marketable skill, so I should get something out of it either way!)

Either way, for sound commercial reasons I need to get my own site up by the end of this month (hopefully sooner). I’ll let you know (some opinions from experts would be welcome!)

BTW, I first spotted Asterisk the other month (you’re linked to from quite a few sites!) I happened to be using Konqueror that day (with the Bitstream Vera fonts, LCD monitor with sub-pixel antialiasing) - the effect was almost a revelation! I guess that was my first encounter with a weblog - I haven’t had time to delve into the finer points of this, RSS and the like, or figure out what a “trackback” is all about - but one thing I did notice, and spend some time thinking about was how easy it was to read the articles. The main things that work for me I think is that the content area is unambiguous, the sidebar is clearly a sidebar (easy to ignore while reading) and the text is well clear of the margins etc. For some reason I find it really interrupts the flow of reading when text runs right into the frames of things!

I did get a bit of a jolt when I clicked a link to a book though! (I wasn’t expecting Amazon - maybe I’ve been living under a rock or something!) Anyway, on that same browsing platform, Amazon was hell. Perhaps with the whole world linking to them, and good customer service, they don’t need a good website? Or the opportunistic selling of surplus kitchen gizmos and the like makes up for the losses caused by the difficulty in browsing for books (hmm … why would I visit an online bookstore?) I just don’t find it easy to do the most obvious thing, which is browse by category (when I did eventually battle my way into it, it was full of out of print books, which I couldn’t find a way of filtering - sometimes that could be a feature, but I was interested in cutting-edge books on web design, not stuff published in 1999 that I can’t even buy!)

Posted on January 9, 2004 12:27 PM | #

19. Mike said:

Kurt Vonnegut compares writing to holding a conversation with someone on a train. You are talking to the taste of one person, but communicating your points clearly as a courtesy to anyone listening in.

I think that’s a good practice for presenting anything publicly. The drama or art you present should be tailored for your audience, but its appeal to that audience should be made as clear and inclusive as possible. I think the best feedback lets the creator know where he stands with what he attempted (if he or she is open to it).

Posted on January 9, 2004 12:50 PM | #

21. Chris said:

This is something that’s bothered me for a long time, even to the point of unsubscribing from all mailing lists. There’s plenty of great technical advice offered, but when the discussion turns toward visual design, it’s all congratulatory.

I think that there is a very romanticized notion of “creativity” in the culture: that it’s a touchy-feely, self-exposing, intimate thing and that to criticize the fruits of the creative process is to cut at the very heart of the creator. This places any creative act, such as design, in a special, safe, sanctified space.

Approaching design in this manner is “amateur” in a very literal sense: it’s done for the love of it, at an intimate level. The designer is very attached to the product of his/her labors. This is in no way a value judgement–it’s a great thing to do something simply because you love it, but the love and attachment tends to interfere with the ability to be objective. There is little or no space for the detachment and calculation needed for effective criticism. It’s very difficult to take negative criticism on something that is held dear, so people tend to shy away from criticizing others in order to protect themselves.

I think that part of the issue is that so many people designing websites are not traditionally trained designers/ artists and haven’t learned to deal with critiques and therefore, criticism. The critiques in art school, no matter how worthless you thought them, (hopefully) did teach not only the ability to speak about and critique work objectively, but the ability to take the harshest criticism without taking it personally (unless, of course, it was meant to be personal).

I think that this is all further complicated by the fact that communication on the web, whether it’s email, instant messages or comments on a weblog, is a fairly imprecise medium. There’s no body language to see, there’s no tone of voice, and people tend to be in a hurry, so shorthand is common. All of this leads to a way of conversing that can easily offend unintentionally.

Anyway, these are just my observations and I’m sure that there are many more reasons that productive critique doesn’t happen within the online community. It’s obviously not easy to change the level of discourse as a whole, but maybe thinking about the reasons will get us there…

Posted on January 9, 2004 02:01 PM | #

23. Keith said:

Ian and Coward - about the drowning prevention site, it was done on a very tight budget and was built for a very specific audience. I realize it’s not the best possible design, but it works and the audience and stakeholders like it.

It’s usable, accessible, user tested and standards approved.

I do appriceate the comments - even if they represent (no offense) seemingly uninformed opinions.

Ian - please do let me know when your site it up! I’ll be happy to give you my own $.02! ;)

Chris - Very well said.

Scrivs - Can’t wait for the comments to be added to the Vault.

Posted on January 9, 2004 02:43 PM | #

25. dave rau said:

Well, it’s pretty interesting to read thru the comments here on the site. I’ve got much better examples of damn fine CSS, but redlabor was starting to piss me off at the end of our production phase. I just wanted people to see the work and mainly the art. There will be a better CSS version coming in the next few weeks and I hope to resolve the cheap use of images instead of text; however, the more I understand about CSS, the more limited it feels for design (specifically multi columns of text and thoughtful use of type). There are like six faces to choose from, and all but 2 or 3 are terrible.

Of the 5 emails I had about the site none were critical or negative; they were all too topical. Being in art school I’m the heavy hitter when it comes to laying down the hard to swallow critical comments. I think I made a girl in a photo class cry because I was so honest, but it’s necessary. We can take it cause we like to dish it too, so don’t hold a damn thing back.

Keep sharing, remain overly critical (both positive and negative) but always remain honest. I can’t stand people who feel the need to preface a negative comment (no matter how justified) with some sugar-coated piece of shit crafted in a last minute effort to boost my ego right before they deliver the slap. Sure it stings initially, but maybe it’s in the right.

A note on grunge: David Carson only went so far and much of grunge died 6+ years ago. We just hope to work a few styles together and create something that feels fine, thoughtful and of the right tone for our message.

A note on the communist/artsy comments: It’s not about creating a communist utopia, but rather referencing some of the visual design and practices in order to portray the contemporary political and social situation in a different light. That sounds too artsy too. Your comment made me feel warm inside tho, so thanks.

Posted on January 12, 2004 11:17 AM | #