RE: annoying websites

At 04:04 PM 7/6/01 +0100, Hough, Jonathan (TWIi London) wrote:
>don't you think these jakob nielsens, eric steven raymonds just promote what
>they call useable
>sites (ie no graphics, backward compliant) because they can't actually
>design?


Jakob Nielsen will tell you he can't design. But it isn't his point. 
Designer or not, sites should still be usable.

For a very recent example. I just went to a Beatles site, where they used 
Shockwave. I am at work, and can't download and load such a plugin, and the 
one I already had was considered "out of date". So in saying no to the 
Shockwave download, I was not allowed into the site at all. Not even a 
simple text link to the html section of the site (which the site that 
mentioned it said was available.) Just a blood-red screen with nothing on 
it. Talk about completely unusable, and I can't even look in to tell how 
good it was designed or not.

That is what I consider really annoying.

And as for programmers and designers. I am nearly convinced that most 
(although not all) of us are hardwired to look at web design differently. I 
am a designer. I worry about how it all looks. My b/f is a programmer. He 
looks at color only in what doesn't scream out "this is tacky!" when he 
designs his color schemes. He thinks code, I think colors. We work together 
really well. I ask him how to debug my forms, he asks me how to lay out his 
forms.

While Eric Steven Raymond may be a coding "guru", and an Open Source 
believer, as is my b/f, it may not mean he is good with the design sense. 
One look at his homepage, especially of his personal image, can disclose 
that. Why? Because if he had any design sense, his own picture would have 
been the first thing he would modify to look better, and not just accept 
the fish eye lens image of a small video feed camera. But that is his 
choice to do with his site as he wants. And I may revisit it, design sense 
or not.

And no, I don't consider myself a guru on design. I know what I like and 
what I want to do with my sites. Everyone is free to design, or not, as 
they chose.

my three pennys.


Kimiko Drew
macruimmon(at)earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~macruimmon/
a web designer in The Camarilla
White Wolf's Official Fan Club

Nothing happens unless first a dream. - Carl Sandburg 

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