Zeldman Wonders Where The Content and Usability Are

1. Andy Hume said:

As you say, most of these sites are solo portfolio sites or personal sites. For most ‘designers’ these are a place to play, to prove a concept or try an idea. Why would you expect award winning content at a design contest?

“Designers don’t seem to care much about content, etc.”

Well yeah… Where I work we have other people called writers who do that, so is it any wonder that people reading here are more interested in your web standards geekery than your content stuff. I know I am.

Posted on June 23, 2005 10:28 AM | #

3. Andy Hume said:

“Once we get to a position where most designers are programmers, Information Architects, and copywriters, we will begin to see designs that reflect all aspects of what make a website great. Great content, great usability, and great design.”

But is it really going that way? The further and quicker the web develops, the more people are going to be specializing in what they are good at. That’s why the people who are designing your GUI are different to the people who are designing your logo, the people that are writing your copy, and the people who are writing your backend.

Anyone that can do all that to a high enough standard is… well a rare person.

“Zeldman, Meyer, Shea, Cederholm”

You really don’t see specialisms within those people. Check out Zen Garden No 100 and understand who the designer is and who the CSS expert is.

Posted on June 23, 2005 10:43 AM | #

5. stuart said:

Asking designers to care about content is like asking an architect to erect a bridge. I design, my site content is average, and rightly so, it is not what I do for a living. In the same way, I wouldnt read a book by a great novelist and return it whining about its poor choice of typeface, or less than perfect strength spine.

If I was a supplier of fine words, thats what I would do, and my website would (in terms of design) be poorer for it.

There will come a time when people begin to realise that web design should not entail everything that makes up the user experience, and that content writers should be writing content, and letting me get on with the job of making it look pretty, and making it work.

Stuart.

Posted on June 23, 2005 10:59 AM | #

7. Keith said:

Andy – You’re very lucky to have writers at all, and luckier still to have folks who understand Web content. Either way, I feel that just as a designer should care about how their site is coded, they should care how people interact with it and, probably more importantly, care about the content their design is delivering.

Someone needs to bridge the gaps. I’m not saying be an expert at more than one thing, but at least know enough to know that there is more to a great site than just design.

Zeldman talks about design in a vacuum. You can do that if you’re on a team of one, or if your on a team of 20. I know many, many agencies where the designer never talks to the coder, and the IA never talks to the designer. Let alone a content expert being thrown into the mix.

That is totally crazy.

If your place of work gets it and you’re all part of a cohesive team, that’s really great and you should be happy you have that.

Posted on June 23, 2005 11:03 AM | #

9. B. Adam said:

Keith: Don’t take this the wrong way, but could it be that you’re just not making content, IA, etc. interesting when you write about it? I mean, just the title of the post you linked to above, “Content Brief”, puts me to sleep.

Maybe the straight, by-the-books way you can deliver web standards “bullshit” and get a great response just doesn’t translate as well into the more difficult to get across points you have about the other stuff.

I mean, Bill Bryson talked about a subject most find extremely boring with A Short History of Nearly Everything – and it’s great! And I think Steve Krug’s already made usability fun and interesting with his classic Don’t Make me Think!

I think it’s simply a matter of writing about the stuff you want others to care about in a way that’s more interesting and entertaining. Maybe tell more stories when you’re talking about content. Or maybe use more diagrams. Or more humor.

Don’t be so quick to blame your readers, bub. After all, if you think everyone else is crazy, couldn’t you be the crazy one?

Posted on June 23, 2005 11:21 AM | #

11. Keith said:

B Adam – I suppose that could be the problem. And, for the record, I don’t consider myself “blaming” anyone at all. Just making an observation. But, and I think this is a big but, this isn’t based on the performance, or lack thereof, of one post. In general, and over time, I’ve seen that some topics are found to be more interesting to my readers than others.

Given what I know about my audience, this leds me to believe that they probably aren’t interested in content, etc. It also could be that, along the lines of your point, the subject matter is a bit dry and there is less to argue about. ;) I imagine that’s the case with yourself anyway.

But, I’ll take your advice and try and make it more interesting next time…bub.

Posted on June 23, 2005 11:28 AM | #

13. Keith said:

Jough – Sounds like a reasonable argument. I guess when there is nothing to argue about, I shouldn’t expect to much of a response huh? But then again, look at all the sites out there with horrible content. Maybe the designers do care and can’t do much about it because the “powers that be” don’t care?

Still, you make a solid point.

Posted on June 23, 2005 11:33 AM | #

15. B. Adam said:

Keith: Yeah, seems a little Wolverine sneaked in there … or something …

Maybe throw random cuss words into your content posts. One could be titled “Motherf*cking Content” or something. That’d bring everybody in from their RSS feeds. Or just try a little nudity with your IA. That seems to work for Fark (except for the IA part).

I think it also might be that “good content” and “bad content” are a little harder than good standards/bad standards or good design/bad design (in theory at least) to quickly distinguish. Especially in a medium where most people are just scanning anyway. It will always be easier, and probably more exciting for most, to chastice someone for their site not validating or their design not being up to par (in their eyes) than for their wording to be weak or their sentences too fragmented.

CSS Vault will probably always be more popular than Notable Words – just ‘cause thumbnails are easier to criticize or praise than paragraphs.

Posted on June 23, 2005 11:40 AM | #

17. Josh Hogeterp said:

Good point Jough. I would have to agree that there really is no argument. I would go out on a limb and say that creating and communicating good content is harder (for designers) than creating a package to present it in. It takes a lot of long term time and effort to produce [good] content, which makes it easier said than done, which in a way, might be a reason why some web designers stand out and others don’t. To me, it is like smoking. Everyone knows it is bad for you, there is no good argument for smoking, but if you are in the habit of smoking, its not that easy to quit. Good content – you know you should be producing it, but it is an almost overwhelming task.

Kind of a tangent here, but it seems odd to me that at the begining of the 20th century production in all kinds of industries took off because of the idea of one person doing one task and then passing the product to the next person in order to produce a great product together. Now, it seems as though value is seen in how much you know (and how well you know it). Can you write? Can you code asp? Can you code php? Oh wait, I don’t want those anymore, what’s this Ruby I hear about? Do you know that? Do you know w3c accessibility guidelines? Is your site usable enough? Oops, that’s not as usable as it could be, is it? “check”. Can you WOW with design? Can you normalize a database in mysql, maybe postgre? Can you create usable dom scipts? How about a little AI? Soemtimes it is a little overwhleming. Don’t get me wrong, I love it all, and immensely enjoy learning new technologies and adding skills. It’s just that it does get a little much for one person. Add in being a full time columnist to that, and you’ve got youself a burnout :)

Posted on June 23, 2005 12:16 PM | #

19. Mike D. said:

To me it all depends on who you’re talking about. You have your pure designers, who have little to no training in IA or code. You have your pure coders, who have little to no training in design or IA. And then you have your pure IA people, who have little to no training in code or design.

All three of these types of people need the other types to survive. If any one of these types of people creates a site completely on their own, the problem areas are going to be obvious and unavoidable. I feel like a lot of the May 1 Reboot problems Zeldman and you talk about are due to this.

The problem occurs because often times, someone in this group doesn’t admit that they need help in either of the other two areas and tries to pick up the slack themselves. There are plenty of individuals who can indeed do all three very well, but this is the extreme minority.

With regards to your question about why “web standards” posts get so many more comments than other, more important posts, I think the answer to that is that “web standards” have become this crutch that a lot of people can lean on when evaluating their own skills. “I use web standards so I’m good!” No, you’re actually not. You’ve just chosen to abide by a certain set of rules. Whether you’re good or not depends on hundreds of other things as well. Practical issues surrounding web standards are easy to argue about and that’s why you get so many comments. Write a thought-provoking article about something else though and you’re more likely to just get people reading it and then nodding their heads.

I’ve found lately that the number of comments in any one of my posts has almost zero correlation with the quality of the post. It’s more about “is this subject ripe for argument/discussion and do I feel like arguing/discussing it right now”.

Posted on June 23, 2005 02:45 PM | #

21. Jennifer Grucza said:

Well, I think talking about content as a vast monolithic whole isn’t going to get a lot of people that interested. I think where it becomes interesting is when you start talking about the specifics of different types of content on different types of sites, and how that would relate to the design.

Your “Designing the Band” series was very popular, and if I remember correctly, you spent time talking about the content of Band websites, and how lacking many existing sites are when it comes to that. That it’s important to be able to easily find concert listings, or to find clips of music.

Posted on June 23, 2005 03:45 PM | #

23. Matthew Oliphant said:

So, does this mean I need to change my last name to “Zeldman?”

Posted on June 23, 2005 04:51 PM | #

25. -b- said:

Earlier this year, an opportunity to teach, didn’t work out and sometimes I regret that I didn’t. I wanted to teach what we all blog about. I’m not in academia and maybe missing something, but I don’t think what we do is not being taught. Print to web, Dreamweaver, scripting, all the mechanics are there, but not the aesthetic.

Posted on June 23, 2005 06:54 PM | #

27. Roland Swingler said:

In response to Stuart (and maybe slightly off topic):

> I wouldnt read a book by a great novelist and
> return it whining about its poor choice of typeface

Maybe not - but many novelists care about the typeface and setting; in fact they are important parts of the novel (Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne or works by Alisdair Gray for example).

Posted on June 24, 2005 02:08 AM | #

29. Jens Meiert said:

Well, there is no sufficient education - there is no all-in way providing you with “all you need to know” about Web Technologies, Validity, Semantics, Accessibility, Usability, Design, Architecture, Typography, Journalism, Web Credibility, and so on. (No, there is not, nowhere.)

Even if there was, each of these topics offers enough gage to (legitimately) spend ages with it. Experts who just do that often are life-savers in large projects, when one just cannot conjure alone. (Ah, for those who want to be the solo entertainer, there is a back door which Keith and “J the Z” and me are likely to use already - the Pareto or 80/20 rule, respectively, paired with profound knowledge of where you find additional information when needed.)

Just some thoughts. I strive for the “perfect Web”, too, but it’s more than anything else to be an idealistic dream - if I’m allowed to say that just once ;)

PS.
And hey, there are flies in the ointment of just all people, even of super gurus.

Posted on June 24, 2005 02:45 AM | #

31. Richard Kendall said:

I’ve not read all the replies, as there are many, but I’ve been a Zeldman fan for a couple of years now, since reading ‘Designing With Web Standards’, like we all should have by now! I have realised too, that merely designing a site is just a link in the product chain; in simple terms: idea, planning, production, presentation.

Working with others, not in the design sphere may not appeal to some, but like i say, it’s part of the process, helps us to understand the purpose, aims, and important aspects of the project in our in-trays.

I will agree, my degree in Multi-media production hasn’t taught me half what I’ve learned in my own time since, but as the Web sphere changes constantly, it must be difficult to keep up in educational curriculum terms.

Posted on June 24, 2005 05:01 AM | #

33. p auL said:

As Rus said, it’s all a matter of goals and knowing your audience. Perhaps I’m stereotyping here, but in my experience, 9 out of 10 designers aren’t particularly concerned with either. They’re just concerned with stretching their design chops and getting something that looks nice out by May 1st.

Obviously, the more designers are armed with knowledge on information architecture, content, and every other aspect of going into a website, the better off they’re going to be. That’s not to say that there isn’t room for an IA specialist, or copywriters, or anything else. That is to say the more a copywriter understands how the web works, the better copy they can write for the web. The more a web designer understands information architecture and content, etc…, the better site they can design.

Posted on June 24, 2005 03:15 PM | #

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Posted on June 25, 2005 05:30 AM | #

37. Christian Watson said:

I find it amazing that so many sites are created with such little thought for their content or their users.

Web design without consideration of these aspects is really just graphic design or perhaps should just be labelled as “art”.

That’s what a lot of these sites are - artist showcases. They look very pretty but serve no purpose beyond that. They certainly don’t serve the purpose of conveying information in any meaningful or useful way.

As to why your posts on content and usability generate less discussion, that’s a hard one. Sounds like more research is in order.

As an aside, an IT colleague of mine is taking an online web design degree. He showed me his site which is totally built with tables and chopped up images. He hasn’t learned a lick of CSS yet - supposedly it is too advanced for the stage that he is at. [Sigh]

Posted on June 27, 2005 01:00 PM | #

39. Jamin said:

This post touched a nerve with me, as I have been feeling the frustration of a lack of understanding of content and information archtiecture from the design side. It makes me wonder about the relationship (or migration) of developers to information architecture, and designers to information architecture. It seems there should be mutual interest, unless all one cares about is code or design, respectively. Seems like you can equally create code or design that serves no one. So it makes sense that the two come together bound by the content, no?

Posted on July 7, 2005 08:25 PM | #