When I look at disassociated with web designer’s eyes, I think how bland and boring it has become in recent years. Yet it didn’t always used to be the two column pseudo newspaper look you see now.
I used to stay up half the night turning PhotoShop mock ups into website interfaces. Most the time I had no idea where the ideas came from. There would be a spark of inspiration, and away I’d go creating and crafting my stuff.
In the days before I worked as a web designer professionally (or should I say commercially) I used to feel I was doing my best work. Now it’s been a good three years since a real creatively powered layout fronted disassociated.
As fun as they were, one major drawback of these creations was that they were often far from usable. People often to say as much. They asked where these mysterious designs came from.
Once web design became a career, or a full time paying job, I seemed to lose all interest in it. Go figure? Perhaps it was overkill. Being engaged in both commercial and non-commercial projects just ended up sapping my creativity.
My loss of interest in whipping up image intensive interfaces occurred around the time that many web designers were starting to take notice of usability. Web sites in general were becoming easier to access and use. It wasn’t just disassociated that challenged its visitors. Gone was the mystery that had baffled some web users; sites had become clear cut and intuitive.
With the advent of CSS controlled multi-column layouts, some said the web had finally became not only usable, but also useful. Web design had come into its own, rather than being an off-shoot of print design.
This all suited me down to the ground. I could still update the look of my website without having to be overly creative or play the web designer. Easy yes, but boring.
The only problem with this so called usability culture is that the web now looks almost the same no matter where you go. All web pages are built along similar lines, that is they have a header, three (give or take) columns, and a footer. In fact sometimes a company’s logo and brand colours are the only way of telling latter day websites apart.
The End of Usability Culture, by Dirk Knemeyer at Digital Web Magazine suggests this is about to change. The web design pendulum is swinging back towards more creative, fun, interfaces.
Web designers can, Knemeyer argues, take what they have learnt about usability and start becoming a little more innovative. He says it is time to start pushing the boundaries again and be a little bolder with design.
Hmm, this could ruffle a few feathers, and about time too. Let’s see what happens.
