Designing honestly for the web
Would you say you’re an honest designer?
I have been designing and building websites for over half of my life now.
During this time, I have witnessed designers, developers and businesses designing dishonestly over and over again.
There are many forms of dishonest design. This article hones in on just one aspect of it — the aspect that ignores the platform you are designing for.
In the context of the web, I call it “bending the web”. I must admit, I have been known to bend it on more than a few occasions myself over the course of my career. Here are just 5 examples:
- I used tables for layout.
- I have given submit buttons the same “hand” cursor as a link.
- I created a custom file input so that it looked “nicer”.
- I have hidden labels to make a cleaner looking UI.
- I have used a select box for navigation.
Have you done stuff like this before?
“A Dao of Web Design” written by John Allsopp over one and half decades ago, has some timeless insights that gives us more than a clue, as to why this happens and continues to happen today.
“If you’ve never watched early television programs, it’s instructive viewing. Television was at that time often referred to as “radio with pictures,” and that’s a pretty accurate description. Much of television followed the format of popular radio at that time.”
And just like the relationship between television and radio, there is a relationship between print and web.
“In print the designer is god. An enormous industry has emerged from WYSIWYG, and many of the web’s designers are grounded in the beliefs and practices, the ritual of that medium. As designers we need to rethink this role, to abandon control, and seek a new relationship with the page.”
We don’t like change and we can’t let go of control.
We take our long, deep-rooted belief and experience in a previous medium, and try and make the new one conform to that belief and experience, however misguided and problematic that is.
When the web came along, we believed we should have the same visual control as we did in print design. Today, it seems, we still have this same, misguided belief. Today we don’t just think it should behave like print, but also more app-like etc.
But what does this have to do with dishonest design?
When we bend the web we are designing dishonestly. And when we design dishonestly we tend to design an unfriendly, often unintuitive experience — which can actually break the inherent features of the web. The very same features which make the web so simple, so powerful, so amazing.
And truth be told, it comes down to ignorance.
I was ignorant.
You have been ignorant.
The question is:
Are you still?
The web and the web browser gives us an amazing set of tools, not to be trifled with. Elements such as links, buttons, pages, forms, back buttons, bookmarking, images, videos, headings, paragraphs, on focus outlines etc.
Do you honestly understand what all these elements mean to the browser?
How different browsers utilise these elements to the benefit of the user?
Or do you see visual manifestations of these features and try to change them or trample over them?
Do you look at what other websites do on your Macbook Pro and iPhone 6 and think “if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me”?
Do you sometimes design without a thought for how the browser does it?
Designing a UI that works well on a different platform, but when using it on the web comes with a host of problems (think infinite scroll).
Have you ever used, designed or built a drop down select menu without a submit button? I have.
When you select an option, the page refreshes and this simple bending comes with a host of problems for the user.
I have also found that designing dishonestly not only costs the user, but costs the developer time and the business money, but that is a topic for another day.
The point is, a select box is meant to be used for input, not for navigation; that is what links are for.
This is just one small example of dishonest design.
You might get away with the odd bit of dishonest design, but why would you want to?
Another useful thing about the web, is that browsers and devices get better all the time. When you design honestly, the experience gets better and better all by itself with zero effort from the designer — for proof just interact with a form on your mobile and notice how the device helps you do that.
If you’re designing a product for the web, then design for the web.
Be honest. Design honestly.
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