Web Design, Defined
Recently, there have been foolish comparisons of web design to other design fields. “Where are the canonical, genre defining designs?” was the main question posed. This question necessitated tacit and explicit comparisons of web design to fundamentally different fields, such as static graphic design. The folly of comparing apples to oranges and expecting logical results have been debunked thoroughly and well:
Armin’s point is that while Google seems to be better than Yahoo, it is still plagued with a bad logo. He’s not “moved or inspired” by the design. Therefore, he reasons, it is not canonical design. Canonical design, in his mind, is one that practitioners of the medium look to as exemplary.
But, frankly, I think Armin has missed his own point. He wants to know what web designers see as canonical, but he’s dismissing the obvious answer because it doesn’t fit into his canonical mold of graphic design. In other words, he’s looking at Google from a graphic design perspective, when web designers necessarily have to look at it from an interaction design perspective.
So, we know there’s a problem: how do we define the very field and how do we place ourselves in context amongst related (but very different!) creative fields?
Into this monumental vacuum steps Papa Zeldman. In an epoch defining piece, Zeldman tears down previous foolish comparisons and builds a supremely accurate description of web design, basically from the ground up. His comments on typography are, of course, perfect:
The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts. They wonder aloud how we can enjoy working in a medium that offers us less than absolute control over every atom of the visual experience. What they are secretly asking is whether or not we are real designers. (They suspect that we are not.)
If you’ve been wondering what, exactly, web design is… well this is the article you’ve been looking for. If you already know and “do” web design, well then this article is even more important. It’ll help you avoid losing yourself in the pretty dongles and pointless widgets that inevitably dilute usable design.