I play videogames. In fact, I play a lot of videogames. My wife would probably tell you I play videogames too much, but I digress. The one thing I come across a lot with games is the amount they're judged by their visuals. Now, I'd love to say I was one of those gaming purists that believes that visuals don't matter, that it's all about the experience and how fun a game is to play, but I would be lying. You see, I believe that the presentation layer is incredibly important in a game. We're talking about a medium that is all about immersion and so if it doesn't look the part, it's not going to be doing it's job as efficiently.So what point am I trying to make? How does this all relate back to the web? Well it got me thinking about user experience on the web and how important it is to look good.
The first thing that springs to mind is that it's a lot to do with context. I'm certainly not trying to to draw any parallels between websites and videogames here, they were simply the catalyst that provoked the question. But one thing I will say is that 'looking good', in my opinion, serves the videogame world a lot more than it does the online space. Let me explain.
Looking good is overrated
So, looking good, what's the deal? Straight off the bat, I'm sure you would brand me an idiot if I were to say that it wasn't important, because it is. To a point. Now I've always been of the opinion that as designers, making our work look good is a given (I won't get too much into this - subjective arena - can of worms and all that). What seems to pass a lot of folk by - not everyone - obviously some reading this will feel i'm preaching to the choir, is that design is first and foremost about problem solving, and this is especially important when designing for the web where communication and interaction are at the heart of what we're trying to achieve.
A majority of the time when you are engaged with a client on a project, what they want is to see a slick piece of eye-candy, a visual of their site to get them excited. That's all well and good, afterall, who wouldn't want to see that? But in contrast, one of the last things they probably want to see is a wireframe document, in all its grey box, functional glory. And herein lies the problem. The step in the process that is arguably the most important is also that which is most often overlooked.
You wouldn't expect an Architect to design a building with no foundations, or a football manager to tell his players to just show off and try and get the ball in the goal. When it comes down to it, it's all to do with sound structure and planning, and it's just as important when designing for the web, or any other digital medium.
Balance
Now before you think I've gone a bit 'Jakob Nielson', i'm not saying style and aesthetics aren't important. Looking good is important, it just isn't everything, or even (in my opinion) the most important thing. What would you say was better? A car that looks ok and runs like a dream or a car that looks amazing but runs like a dog. Of course the smart among you will say neither and that it's better to have a car that looks amazing and runs like a dream, and you'd be right, it's what we should all be aiming for. But it's important to remember, we're not in the business of creating eye-candy, we're in the business of creating experiences.
This is not the first time questions have been raised over the importance of aesthetic style. In 1896 American architect Louis Sullivan coined the now infamous term 'form follows function' that was a principle used throughout 20th century architecture and industrial design. Founders of the Modernist movement in the early 1900's even went as far to proclaim 'form follows function, ornament is a crime'. A step to far if you ask me, but then it's funny how the minimalist stylings that were born out of such thinking ironically became a style of their own, and can be seen throughout much product and web design today.
In a way, it saddens me that more and more these days the roles of User Experience professionals and 'web designers' seem to be becoming more polarised. In my mind, a web designer is only doing half their job if they're being asked to style up someone else's wireframes. Maybe as time goes on we'll use different terms for these roles, or preferably we'll see a return to a single role as information architecture becomes a more considered topic within design education.
IA is your friend
So, in conclusion, what do we need to do to make sure we don't lose sight of this essential part of the process? First of all, as designers we need to recognise the importance of good information architecture and embrace it. If it's a subject area that you're not overly familiar with, pick up a few books on the subject to get the ball rolling. You could do worse than taking a look at 'Don't Make MeThink!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability' by Steve Krug or 'The Design of Everyday Things' by Don Norman, which are both great starting points. The former is a particularly accessible (and short) book that you can pass onto colleagues that work in other disciplines or even clients. And let's face it, the more the word is spread, the easier the job becomes.
