10.1 Funny stuff

Tom Chi and Kevin Cheng have a very funny comic at ok/cancel that displays a designer being chided by his office coworkers over increasing the border size on a web redesign. When the designer protests that the size increase is part of a cohesive design idea his coworkers cut him off by saying that they will need to retest prior to launch (which would probably cost untold sums of money in its own right…). The last frame hints at the sometimes ridiculous nature of design-by-committee as the coworker suggests that the border size increase would have cost the company a minuscule percentage of business. This is hilarious, but hints at the importance of balancing user-centered design, analysis, and aesthetics. As the comments indicate, people are rather torn on this front. One user notes that for a larger company, that insignificant percentage would equate to hundreds of thousands of dollars, while another notes that such pettiness will wear down creative professionals and they will depart for companies that allow more freedom. They are probably both right, and certainly this cartoon was at least partly in response to Doug Bowman departing from Google for such controlling policies as spoofed here. The accompanying blog post details this departure and goes on to talk about the balance between design and data-driven decisions.

Check out the comic and blog here:
http://okcancel.com/

My favorite line from the blog post reads, "OK, first off — design is not the same as art … I’ve often said that Art is about freedom while Design is about constraints." This is a great characterization since design really is much more about making something aesthetically pleasing while conforming to communication and usage needs. Design needs to accomplish a purpose that artwork is not necessarily held to. Both must communicate, but clarity isn't always the main goal of artwork. With design the message can be provocative but must still be clear. With that, data can help to refine the design process. It is very easy to get too absorbed into your own head and forget that others may not share your sense of logic or vision. Often things that makes sense to you are just not clear to others. User testing can help with this, as can other evaluations. The key thing, as the blog points out, is that designers learn what evaluation techniques add value and which waste time. Then, by pushing for the value-added metrics the designer can help control the process and demonstrate the professionalism and knowledge that goes into design and effective evaluation.  

This can be easier said than done, however. Whether evaluation is data-driven or not, committees can be a bad thing. There is a finesse to the design process that non-creatives don't always understand. The fact is there are some wretchedly designed sites out there that have great contents, but no will look long enough to find them. There also sites with good intentions that try to make everything visible from the homepage, which results in visual overload and unmanageable navigation. I worked at a museum that was going through a website redesign when I arrived. This was in 2007 and the redesign is still happening, two webmasters later. The problem there was that the design committee was comprised of people from various departments telling the designer what was needed. There were many competing interests and no cohesive visions. This is where design breaks down. As of now, the web page is still cluttered, confusing, and ugly. The designer was unable to communicate that the design would allow users to access information easily, but not necessarily from a list of everything placed on the homepage. An appropriate look for the site was watered down to the point that it does not fit with the image of the museum or look of the printed materials they produce. All of the changes, as far as I am aware, were based on anecdotal "evidence" as opposed to data. This is sort of the flip side of what was detailed in the cartoon, and yet it represents the same type of oppression that can hinder and destroy good design.

Speaking of design, my aunt had a designer work with my original logo suggestion. As it turns out, she had a nonprofessional work with it. The woman had done some miscellaneous design work for the county when she was employed there several years ago, but the extent of that work is questionable. This is why you always ask for a portfolio sample! The final product my aunt was provided with had redesigned the original into something that was unbalanced and looked a little like a PowerPoint slide.

Logo redesign:

The font chosen was Papyrus, which does not in any way communicate the sophistication of fine roasted coffee and specialty foods; the inclusion of a globe as steam from the coffee was too cluttered and the elements cut from the original design were jagged (as in not a vector graphic). The elements and text piled together created something of a lopsided triangle and the black background was dominating everything. This would also present problems for printing; it just wasn't functional at all, let alone communicative of the correct message. It was mentioned that the black background could be eliminated, but that would actually create more balance issues by exacerbating the lopsidedness of the text and image stack.

So back to the drawing board. I tweaked the original design, changed out the fonts (a free Caviar Dreams, and licensed , and sent it off to a company that produces vector graphics by redrawing the shapes in Illustrator--I just don't have that skill down to the appropriate level. Anyway, the logo is now complete and ready for inclusion on the website as well as signs, vinyl labels, and packaging.

Original design tweaked and vectorized:

I also want to briefly recount my experiences playing around with Dreamweaver plugin Flexi CSS Layouts. It is a drag and drop process that allows for drawing layouts while it writes the code. It is an interesting program but it has a few quirks I wasn't able to iron out. I will have to try it again at a later time because it seemed to create very clean code. However, if you notice in the image below, some things, when not drawn correctly yield some slightly funky results. Despite my efforts, I couldn't quite get the layout right, so I returned to working directly from Dreamweaver for this part.

Flexi layout, slightly off:

I am adding this plugin to an ever-growing list of things I need to study after this class ends. For instance, using the @fontface css rule is something I need to read more about. It seems like a great way to add fonts without defying accessibility by using images of fonts for headlines, however, it doesn't work correctly with Internet Explorer. I would love to use this rule, but IE is still the most widely browser so I can't defy all those users, especially when creating a site to accompany a physical store. There are all kinds of work arounds out there, but I just don't have time to learn that in enough detail just now. My suspicion is that the website I role out will be a good start, and the best I'm capable of at this skill level. Then over the semester break I will be able to work out some fixes to make it more sophisticated and technologically sleek. I'm overwhelmed by all the information out there and thankful for all the techies that so freely share resources, tricks, and advice via a seemingly infinite number of blogs and forums. I'm even more grateful for the websites that organize the best of these resources and deliver the lists in endless succession to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. "Following" has made me so much more aware since every quality organization is engaging in social outreach. It really does work in building a great community feeling in an abstract environment. I feel totally connected.