Disenchanted

A few days ago I realized the following: I am disenchanted with web design. I say this while I have been working on a redesign of my own, but I have a lot of reasons for feeling this way.

For one thing, I am not a designer. How have I been fooling everyone all along? The truth is that I have a very talented but woefully underpaid circus monkey working for me. I hide him in the closet when people visit. He’s the designer, and I am just the business savvy exploiteer.

I was kidding (honestly). My designs are not the kind of quality work that a circus monkey could produce. Still, that leaves you with no explanation as to how a non-designer manages to get recognized as one so often, even making it into the 9rules Design Community. I can offer one possible explanation though: I know more about CSS than, like, a lot of people, and I’m half decent at usability and accessibility too. Buy that? Good.

So on the topic…

When I started learning CSS, I was awed by the Zen Garden. My goal, which required a certain amount of skill I will never have, was to create a featured design. After 15 minutes passed without that goal materializing, I lowered my expectations and decided I would settle for an entry in Stylegala. While I was still learning basic CSS techniques, I would spend a lot of time visiting various design galleries. They were full of inspiration and I would look at every website thoroughly. After a while, however, as I learned more about usability/accessibility and I continued to explore the galleries, I realized something about a lot of the work being produced by CSS designers. Despite the inherent accessibility and simplicity of CSS based design, many designers were finding ways to make their sites inaccessible, ineffective, and difficult to use. CSS is a technology that provides amazing flexibility. It always bothered me to see websites featured across multiple design galleries with rigid, photoshop-to-css design and piss-poor usability.

Then I learned enough to spend my time actually making websites as opposed to gawking at them. I got involved in groups like WSG, and I also launched Liquid Designs as my quiet protest to the typical fare of all the galleries on the web. Since then I have been through a long learning process in my own work and in observing the work of others.

When I redesigned this site (christianmontoya.com) for the last CSS Reboot in May 2006, I was very much focused on design for design’s sake. I tried my best to make it usable (using light gray on soft black as opposed to bright white on black and a liquid layout to accomodate a range of viewport widths), but for the most part I was just concerned about making a hip looking set of graphics. I was pleased with the design when I finished it, but more importantly, I was done and I was able to spend the next few months just blogging. This transition to working on content rather than design was very important… as time passed, I saw ways in which my design was hurting my content. I realized that after the initial rush of people visiting just to see Domo-kun in vector glory, my design was worthless if it didn’t help my content. Form follows function.

And because my previous design at Liquid Designs was very much like this one, I learned this lesson twice. It was rather often that I received comments for both of my sites claiming that they were/are difficult to read, and for someone who aspires to be a top blogger, I take these comments seriously.

So seriously, that when I redesigned Liquid Designs, I put usability first. Black text on white, headers defined by a different font, clear lines marking sections, a liquid-elastic layout, and plain form buttons were requirements I placed on myself. I did this because I know that as much as I could pay someone for a fancy image to slap across the top of my layout, such a thing would be wasted on a site which is known and loved purely for the content it offers.

A good example of content-focused design is Stammy’s site. It is what more of the blogging world (and even the rest of the web) should be: lightweight, clean, and content-focused. KISS all the way.

But while the beating goes on, the design community still manages to amaze me. Take this entry over at cssimport.com for example. Just take it. Take it all in. Come back here when you are done and say it with me:

“Forget the galleries. Forget the mockups. Design is not about fancy graphics. Design is not about drop shadows, outer glows, or gradient overlays. Design is not about reflected logos, icons, or stickers. Design is not about sIFR, AJAX, or Flash. Design begins with content. Good design is not measured by fanboy approval. Good design is measured by traffic, search engine placement, and conversions. Good design does not make the designer famous. Good design makes the client rich. Good design does not hinder the user experience. Good design is accessible to all.”

(disclaimer: I love joshuaink.com, I really do, I just needed an example.)