Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman.

Some of the passages in this article reminded me of the dark days I once spent working as a web designer.

Trying to impress upon some people (including creative directors) that there was more to web design than just design was near nigh impossible at times.

Some who don’t understand web design nevertheless have the job of creating websites or supervising web designers and developers.

You might wonder how people with no web design experience, or even an iota of knowledge of the subject, manage to become to creative directors and the like. Well, it’s a little of who you know, and a little of the elements you know…

The trouble is, web design, although it employs elements of graphic design and illustration, does not map to them.

That’s not to say such people were not talented designers, the problem was their field of expertise lay in print or graphic design, not web design.

Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for.

Some of us were going the wrong way back in the days of the dot com boom. Some of us probably still are today.

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Sound familiar?