stevenclark.com.au

There isn’t any doubt that Drew McLellan has a successful website with 24ways.org and I’ve been a passing fan of Time van Damme’s Made By Elephant for some time. Tim provided the latest 24ways.org web design that’s getting discussed heavily in Veerle Pieter’s comments. So this post should hopefully not be taken as anything other than respectful regardless of the direction it takes. Because the danger of being different, of searching for design innovation, is always the underlying risk of likes and dislikes in the user community. Being different not only forces us to consider that conventions may be wrong, it also makes us consider whether they were right.

Veerle’s post in defence of 24ways.org’s design innovation definately comes from the graphic designer as is clear from her comment reply regarding usability. I’d put forward tentatively that just because something is accessible doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful, and the same should apply to usability. When we step beyond the user’s importance to weigh in with our trump card of design as art – that’s a particular kind of design arrogance. But that’s another discussion entirely, so back to 24ways.org.

The problem is that in the great web tradition of trolling and flaming the comments about the redesign are often acutely negative. Part of the relationship between a popular site and high traffic will mathematically transpose to a higher number of negative comments, right? Well, sort of. The problem is that rather than critique, which very few of us are professionally trained to provide, we give opinion. As time short as we are that opinion can be reduced to a series of caveman grunts – don’t like, is shit, pull in your head. Personally, I’d consider just pulling those out in moderation simply because they don’t add to the conversation – water off a ducks back. But Veerle has a valid point, we ask for innovation but bowl anyone over in an instant who dares move outside the conformist circle (remind me tomorrow to do my graphic design post, by the way – I have similar issues with a lot of graphic design).

Personally I find the current design of 24ways.org difficult to use because it’s hard to read. There seems to be some disconcerting level of grey overlay that is purposefully trying to make my life more difficult. Usability, from my user perspective, is more important than beauty. After all, it’s an information site.

So let’s cut to the chase. What makes a successful website? Accessibility? Usability? Beauty? Functionality? Is it the slickness of the commenting system? Rather than criticism of the design I’d be interested in the statistical results and how those results meet the business case. Because web sites aren’t artistic silos, they’re business solutions to business problems. Does it make money? Does it meet it’s goals?

The criteria for 24ways.org would be reasonably simple. Has traffic increased or decreased this year? Are users staying to read the articles or bailing out? Next, ask yourself what is the purpose of 24ways.org – disemmination of contemporary best practice information? Is it about raising the profile of the website itself?

I’d suspect I’m far from the only person who finds the interface difficult to negotiate. But I’d have to concede that from a business perspective as long as the statistics are supporting this year’s design and the information is being effectively spread throughout the designer / developer community then it’s meeting those underlying goals. And, oddly enough, the controversy around the design itself can be (although a risky strategy) enough to raise the profile of 24ways.org to reach more of our industry radars. It’s better to be talked about than not mentioned at all. Right? So without knowing the brief it’s a bit hard to see if Tim’s met it – or pushed convention too far.

It’s always a little dangerous when the user is placed behind the importance of the graphic design. If that weren’t the case we’d be praising small grey on grey text along with mystery meat navigation, we’d have animated gifs and blinking text – try to read that man! Cool. But I think 24ways.org is a little more sophisticated than that.

The short answer to Veerle’s post would be that I agree, trolling and flaming are an industry bore. But it’s the web in a nutshell. Anonymity breeds a prolific audio-vomit we don’t meet in regular life. Delete those comments that don’t contribute critique, and move on. However, the design consciously impacts my ability and desire to read the articles. The page has been open on a Firefox tab for a week and I haven’t completely read a single one. That might not be so good a sign that it’s a great redesign.

At the end of the day market forces will determine the business answers to 24ways.org. They’ll survive for another year, the content ensures it. But for a lot of people expecting best practices it might eat at the street cred. That’s the innovator’s risk.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under accessibility, business, css, design, javascript, programming, rants, usability, web standards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.