D. Keith Robinson's Gorilla Web Tips

Tip Number Five - The Myth of Perfect Web Design

August 4th, 2003

"Perfect is the enemy of the good."

I overheard that in a meeting recently and I wholeheartedly agree with it. It's obvious to me that it can be meaningful to many endeavors, but I think it has a particularly strong meaning when applied to Web design and development.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a perfect Web design. I'm surprised how many people don't agree with me on this. I'll take it a step further, striving for perfection in Web design, while admirable, can actually end up having an adverse effect on your projects.

The meaning of perfect and Web design

To understand what I mean let's define what perfect is and what it implies. Perfect has many meanings, the main meaning, according to Webster's, is "being entirely without fault or defect." It doesn't take a perfect genius, pardon the pun, to understand what that means in terms of Web design.

For practical purposes two things should be noted about "perfect" and Web design:

It's subjective. What one person might see as perfect, another might see as mediocre, for example.
It implies that there is only one way of doing things.

Based of those two fairly obvious assumptions there is no such thing as perfect design, or a perfect solution on the Web. That is ok, we don't need a perfect Web, in fact I'd settle for a pretty good Web at this point. But is there anything wrong with striving for perfection? On the surface the answer quite obviously is no, but expecting perfection can cause you problems.

The problem with perfect

A good Web design or solution is based on solid goals. How you achieve those goals and the process you take in getting there is very important. The expectation or illusion of perfect can, and often does, get in the way of getting to those goals in the best possible manner.

Solid goals very rarely, if ever, line up. What I mean to say is that you usually have to balance one goal against another. A perfect solution to one of your goals may have (and often does) an negative impact on another goal. It's next to impossible to do the right thing all the time.

It's also important to understand that when designing for the Web often times there is no one right way of doing things. Most times there are multiple ways of getting something done, and most of these ways have various pros and cons. Lots of times there are lots of very good ways, and very different ways to achieve your goals.

Be wary of the one who tells you there is only one way to do something. With any Web project, you'll have multiple competing goals that in turn have multiple competing solutions. If you think you don't, it's time to have another look at your goals.

Get to very good

So what are our options, now that we've ruled out perfect? Well, the good (or bad) news is that most Web design and most solutions you see out there are just plan bad. I'm sure someone thought many of these solutions we're perfect. Perfect can be subjective, remember, and that's pretty scary.

To be better than most what you need to do is decide upon what would be very good, stick to that, and strive for what are the best possible solutions. They won't be perfect, but they'll be in the realm of the realistic and very good if done right.

Starting with solid goals and devising a realistic plan and solution to implement those goals is the key to very good Web design and development. If along the way a perfect solution is stumbled upon? Hey, bonus! The key here is to not let unattainable goals, or unrealistic expectations keep you from attaining the best possible solution.

Hey, it's not perfect, but it's good, and that's better than most.

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