Red Herring Phenomenon
Reading Khoi Vinh’s Lost in Spacing, it struck me that the red herring phenomenon he mentioned seems to be a treadmill I continuously re-experience. The article discussed Khoi’s recent experience playing around with white space on user interface design and particularly the negativity that arose from improving vertical space in an email client interface. The red herring phenomenon, as nearly all of us will have experienced it at a raw moment of our career, is when you show a mockup or an idea or some prototyped element of design to your boss, co-worker or associate. The result is they focus on a small off-the-radar part you weren’t really intending to put out there. You’re saying “hey check out my X” and they’re saying “but your Y is out of focus”. Something like that.
Recent examples of the red herring phenomenon in my recent past are always sore points to the ego. On a web page enhancement, for example, I had to create some backgrounds behind a set of four H3 headings, each of a different colour and with a rounded right hand corner. I put in a soft gradient for effect and had not bothered to change the text from #666 (quite blackish but not black) to anything especially relevant. My world view was – hey what do you think of that background and gradient? What about those four colours? The red herring reply was the #666 on that H3 needs to be white, something that wasn’t meant to be up for question.
I find just about any time that an idea or a design is pushed forward one of these comes to the fore, too. Its just a matter of growing with maturity and accepting the feedback without moving into defensive mode. The moment you squirm they eat you alive on the hook! I tend to just take it on board now. Regardless, whenever I put forward a navigation prototype there is always someone who gets obsessed with the grey and white flatness or the boxiness of the prototype layout. A layout I’ve purposefully made un-designed to avoid obsession over colour or design elements nothing to do with navigation. Or someone pipes up and says “I really think white sites are so last year”. Some days you’re just not destined to win.
Its only a real problem when they can’t move past it to see what you’re really showing them, though. So I’d suggest not making it a barrier. Don’t bite. Smile and say “yes I think white is an excellent idea at this point in time”. Red herring phenomenon is me on a little treadmill walking through life.
