Ben on web design

Web designers and developers are too close to their work… too close to the medium itself. Here are 4 examples why web designers/developers may need to take a step back and look at their projects from a different perspective:

1. Left and top navigational elements may seem to lack creativity, but does your mom give a damn about innovation when she cannot find that garden accessory at her favorite on-line store?
2. While you’re finding new, clever ways to indicate that something is a link, your site’s users are busy searching for the underlined, blue text.
3. Sure that beveled button the client is requesting was “played out” in 1996, but to many less experienced web users, buttons of this type mean “click me.”
4. Animated gifs (tastefully done) are still an option. You don’t have to open up Flash for every animation.

The basic point here is that we (web designer/developer-types) have been on the web a long time. Not only have we been there since 1995 or earlier, but we have also logged thousands and thousands of hours on-line. Our experience level with the web as a medium vastly outnumbers the experience of almost every other type of user today. This difference has caused a rift to be developed between designers and the general public… one that has been very frustrating for both sides.