Realigning Design

October 27, 2005 | 12 Comments

In my weekly article for publish this week I did a bit more exploring on the ideas brought up in my Graphic Design on The Web post.

This time I used the Slashdot redesign that Khoi talked about last week to explore what it really means to be a designer. I’m getting the feeling that there are quite a few designers out there who are frustrated by how the rest of the world views their role.

Is all design really art?

Cameron made a great point in his recent A List Apart article:

Thus, the differences between Redesigners and Realigners might be summarized as follows: The desire to redesign is aesthetic-driven, while the desire to realign is purpose-driven. One approach seeks merely to refresh, the other aims to fully reposition and may or may not include a full refresh. (Note that by “reposition,” I mean strategy and not physical location or dimensions.)

If you design without purpose isn’t that really art? I’m not saying, I’m just askin’?

The problem for many designers, as I see it, is not that we see ourselves as full-time “redesigners”. It’s more that everyone else sees us that way. How many of you have worked on a project where you wanted to (and probably did) do some real thinking, only to have it trumped by some aesthetic preference of your client?

It’s in here that the battle between usability and “graphic design” is often created. I know I’ve worked on quite a few sites like this. Where you’ve got to compromise your well thought-out and purpose driven design to make sure you’re addressing your client’s vision of art.

Communication and Realignment

This is where communication comes in. Many people out there will tell you that design is all about communication. They may have a point there. However, I’ve found that sometimes, when it comes to communicating what we do and how we can really help, we sometimes have a problem.

It’s not an easy task. How do you tell a client that their feedback is wrong because it’s all about the art? How can you convince a client that what they really need is a strategically thought-out-start-from-scratch realignment instead of a quick refresh? Especially when sometimes, they’re partly right, or can’t afford anything more. There is a ton of grey area in here.

We’ll only become the design thinkers Jess talks about if we can change the way our clients think about us and our services.

I guess I think (on the Web especially) designer’s need to start by changing the way we’re perceived. This starts by realigning (thanks for the useful term Cameron!) ourselves as designers. That means showing our thinking and sharing when we do “head” work. It might mean having a gallery site for strategic solutions and putting less emphasis on the “pretty work”.

(Do we really need another Stylegala?)

Let’s applaud sites that succeed from a business goals standpoint and those that have quietly succeeded on many levels. Let’s put some more emphasis on information architecture, content and usability and give out more awards for that stuff.

If we can bring our thinking out, as opposed to always showcasing what our hands do, maybe we can take a step toward a higher level of design.

Filed under: Web Design
Keyword Tags: design web+design strategy communication

Comments

1. Mike D. said:

“How do you tell a client that their feedback is wrong because it’s all about the art? How can you convince a client that what they really need is a strategically thought-out-start-from-scratch realignment instead of a quick refresh? Especially when sometimes, they’re partly right, or can’t afford anything more.”

The best way to get around this - and all misguided client criticism - is to run a little interference and make them think *they* came up with the great logic behind what you’re producing. Use the “partly-right” part of their criticism for this. It usually goes something like this for me:

“You brought up a really important concept there a second ago and I think it really helps in this particular situation: focus. Keeping the navigation dark grey and on the left side of the page accomplishes your goal of maintaining focus on the rest of the screen. In fact, I think your concept of focus is probably the single most important aspect of this redesign.”

The important part here is for the client to walk away thinking they are smarter than they previously thought they were. When that happens, all is good.

Posted on October 27, 2005 09:10 AM | #

2. Keith said:

Mike D – Good adive and I know it can work. Still, what about when you don’t have access to the true stakeholders? Or the issue of having enough money.

I’ve run into a situation again and again where a client is more than happy to pay for visual design, but won’t pay for IA or anything else. You explain that’s it’s all part of the process, but when you show them the bill, cuts need to be made.

What usually ends up happening is that “designer pride” kicks in and you make sure you go through the whole thinking process, even though you’re not getting paid for it. But it’s a risk.

(The issue of not having face time with the true stakeholders on a project is a big one, too much for this post. It happens all the time.)

There are many ways to make it work, but it’d be nice to really be able to communicate with clients without all the bullshit and have them recognize the value of a “thinking” designer.

Posted on October 27, 2005 09:25 AM | #

3. Jared Christensen said:

Maybe we need to stop referring to ourselves as “designers.” I think the word itself is too closely tied to aesthetics and not nearly associated enough with strategy/thinking.

To answer the question, “If you design without purpose isn’t that really art?”: Not really; all that implies is that art has no purpose, which is of course not true. Design without purpose is just that: design without purpose.

Posted on October 27, 2005 12:29 PM | #

4. Keith said:

Jared – You make a good point about art, and of course I realize that art has purpose. However, I don’t think we need to stop calling ourselves designers though. We just need to communicate better what it is we can do.

Posted on October 27, 2005 02:51 PM | #

5. Andy Rutledge said:

It’s responsibility, not purpose, that distinguishes design from art. Art is beholden to the purpose, aims and desires of the artist and not necessarily anyone/anything else. Design, by contrast, is beholden to everyone and everything other than the subjective concerns of the designer.

Interesting, though, that part of our responsibility is to bring our own informed understanding to the project without letting it get in the way of other repsponsibilities. Not an easy job, but if it were easy…

With design, everything we produce brings consequence. Everything we do affects the lives and experience of other people and that’s a significant responsibility. Because of this, even though aesthetics are an important part of what we designers do, the issue you cite here of realignment is at the core of what design is about. I’m glad to see you and others talking about it more these days.

Posted on October 28, 2005 04:09 AM | #

6. Faruk Ates said:

Andy,

That’s a great point you make about responsibility, art vs. design. I fully agree with it.

I think that we as designers should try and sell it more as “Information Architecture recreation” (or realignment, or redesigning) and less as “just” design.

If anything, we should present ourselves more as IA designers than visual designers, or even just designers. As much as we know that design = communication = information architecture, our clients, more often than not, don’t know this at all, and they won’t learn until we start communicating the more complete term to them.

It’s funny that this subject is surfacing all over the place, as I’m in the middle of preparing a lot of articles that focus entirely on the IA process and hardly on the visual design. A few more weeks, though…

Posted on October 28, 2005 07:30 AM | #

7. Dean said:

I completely agree with the comments already made, but the power the client has in the descisions should surely be levelled at aesthetics by way of branding and copy, then let us take our intellectual scalpel to the rest, twiddle, twist, turn, flip, this shade, that shade, this and that there and not there. Our design + their branding.

I say scalpel because after all I would not argue with the skills of my heart surgeon, because although I may have a basic understanding of the human anatomy, I would ultimately trust his judgement and dexterity. Oh and by the way Mr Surgeon, thanks for the heart bypass but I would rather you used a Band Aid instead of suturing me.

Obviously we work within a completely different field, but the metaphor is there.

We understand their concerns, but how do we best convey our reasonings? Quite simply I don`t think we can. Human nature will always be to question everything, the same way you will question my comments here.

To quote the original post;

“If we can bring our thinking out, as opposed to always showcasing what our hands do, maybe we can take a step toward a higher level of design”.

Lack of mediation. Not communication.

We are gradually developing into mediators between our architectural art and the clients visual conception.

Never the twain shall meet, but we have to find that middle ground.

Posted on October 28, 2005 05:49 PM | #

8. Zach said:

I totally agree, what most CSS galleries do nowadays is feature the image-rich sites that happen to make use of CSS, not sites, that while they may not be the prettiest, use CSS in new and creative ways.

Posted on October 31, 2005 04:36 PM | #

9. Steve Media said:

I think you are right about the slashdot redesign contest really be about skinning, and not a full redesign. I am also glad you pointed out a pet peve of mine with the way slashdot does it’s comment threads.

Steve

Posted on November 2, 2005 09:19 PM | #

10. EggmanDesign said:

Clients sabotage well thought ideas for “self-proclaimed good taste” as do full time employers. I work at a company right now who makes money on lead-gathering portals. Since no one of authority is a technicaly saavy individual they let anything go, and cut corners where it matters. I recently did a “redesign” and thought out every detail, including the graphics (all styles in CSS, markup in XHTML… totally logical tree according to DOM… everything validated against the W3. The programmer took my markup/CSS and redid the whole thing into tables. Why? B/C he doesn’t believe CSS is the correct way to layout a page - no reasoning, just self-proclaimed authority. I could have done the whole redesign in photoshop, sliced it and called it a day. What a waste of time.

Posted on November 6, 2005 06:38 PM | #

11. jeremiah said:

Oh eggman, how you have the hit the nail on the head. I have had this same problem several times working for different companies. I design what I think is a masterpiece everything beautiful and some idiot programmer comes along and converts everything to tables, that or I hand off the job to someone else on the team and I come back later and they have butchered everything.

Posted on November 13, 2005 10:37 PM | #

12. Stewart said:

I consider designers to be pure artists. They just use artificial dyeing. But still they express their vision through a “picture”. And for designers on the conversely to the artists to be anderstood is of vital importance cause they work for people not for the art.

Posted on December 26, 2005 03:03 PM | #