Design vs Usability

[Tom]

The Jan04 issue of Digit Magizine carries a gutless 'Head to Head' debate on Design vs Usability. Arguing for design, a flasher from Digit London (http://www.digitlondon.com/holding/main.htm) damages his argument by including his own URL. In support he gives 'our colleagues at Hi-res (http://www.hi-res.net/)', one of their flash sites Habitat (http://www.habitat.net/uk/main_uk.htm), and a URL which does not function at the time of writing, for Bertolucci's The Dreamers www.the-dreamers.com (http://www.the-dreamers.com). Maybe he got the URL wrong and meant to write http://www.thedreamers.com/index.shtml but the 'official website for the film' is given by Fox as http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thedreamers/. [This raises an interesting case in URL Design - an important but neglected subject. One must consider the issue of 'To hyphen or not to hyphen?' URLs should be memorable and unmistakable.]

In response to the flash argument, a 'Digital Policy Development Officer' from the Royal National Institute for the Blind RNIB (http://www.rnib.org.uk) does little more than state that there is 'a legal duty on service providers to ensure that any service is accessible to people with disabilities'.

I see this as a debate between the daft and the blind; its like debating whether food or drink is more important, ignoring the quality of life.

[Tom]

I tried again and the linked worked http://www.the-dreamers.com/, taking me to a site which begins with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin but goes on to Bertolucci's film. The site is not unimpressive - as an animated poster. One cannot judge it by the standards of websites which aim at the provision of information.

[David]

I had a subscription to Digit magazine for a number of years but I recently let it lapse. I just got tired of seeing all the latest films/adverts showcased and described in technical but uncritical terms. Their stance on the design vs usability debate does not surprise me. See, it's clever to use Flash isn't it. And you have to be clever to use it - got to know that ActionScript - cool.

The Digit philosophy has turned from the useful and informative to "toys for boys". The tools have become more important than the product and so, naturally, design is more important than usability because usability doesn't require and special, expensive or cool tools. Only, logic, method and consideration, and this does not sell magazines. This is why all the best comment, ideas and instruction on "the new web design" (and by that I mean XHTML + CSS + consideration = usability & accesibility) is only available on the Web and not in printed form - at least not in magazines.

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Design of URLs is an important issue. I avoid hyphens wherever possible, preferring to use capitalisation to make URLs more readable as in www.WebsiteArchitecture.co.uk. Since URLs are not case sensitive, they can be expressed in any way one likes, such as www.CADTutor.net.

[Tom]

You can't criticise a poster for not being a lecture, a film for not being a book or a Christmas card for not being a letter. Each unto his own.

[David]

You are, I suppose, assuming that magazines are read for the purposes of entertainment rather than for the acquisition of knowledge and that since usability is not particularly entertaining, I can't criticise Digit for passing over it.

I think many magazines are for entertainment but others that puport to be "the magazine for digital creatives" (in the case of Digit) - and by that I assume they mean creative professionals, have a duty to provide their readers with a balanced and informative diet of editorial. IMHO

[Tom]

Sorry about the lack of clarity. What I meant to imply is that it is fine for some websites to be like posters (eg with powerfully flashy imagery) and others to be like reference books (eg with valuable information content). So I don't think one can dismiss either Flash websites or those who design them.

[David]

In which case I think the word "Design" is not being used in the correct sense here. Perhaps we should talk about Art vs Usability since both art and usability require an element of design. Art and usability may be mutually exclusive but design and usability are not.

[Tom]

We have a course in Web Art on our books, planned by Saul. But art is different. One might win a prize with a flickering screen. Posters, which strike me as the nearest of physical parallels to many Flash websites, are design not art, at least in my book. My reasoning is that they have a function. The-dreamers.com website referred to above has a very real function: to advertise the film. The studio may well be right that this is best done in this way. So Flash has a 100% justified use (if it is a Flash site!)

[francis]

Found Teitur's site (http://www.teitur.com/) over Christmas after taking delivery of his rather fine debut album. The site is truly appalling. It starts with a popup window, which is no use if you have pop-up blocking[1]. To find the URL of the movie, you have to hunt around the source of a frameset. Once you've got that, you end up going through two or three index pages only to get to a 'my third flash movie' experience. Once there, navigation is pretty much mystery meat (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html), and results aren't as advertised (mailing list URL doesn't seem to have a URL for this; instead you get a URLs for official fanclub, a yahoo eteam, Atlantic Airways, iTunes and more)

It's a shame that his label didn't bother with a better site. They managed to get him onto CNN's The Music Room (http://www.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/music.room/) which is shown around the world, and onto some high profile tours in the USA. And the album is getting good reviews (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000A5A0Y/ref=sr_aps_music_1_1/202-4236794-0362205).

This site could have (should have) been designed using XHTML and CSS. It would look so much better and would be eminently more usable.

[1] The IE 6.05 that's due out early 2004 is going to have popup blocking. All those sites that have an onload feature for Flash content are going to have to redesign. Probably not majorly, but they will have to change. The other issue that this raises is whether coders will find a way to bypass popup blocking and find another way to iritate users. At the moment, IE is probably the only browser left without this feature natively installed, so it won't be too much on an issue for them. Next year will bring a whole different ball game.