Playing with Web Design

Web site designers, as with any designers, run the risk of forcing their “vision” on their customer. After all, they are the professionals, and know what’s best. And, to an extent, that would be correct. Their heads are filled with design paradigms and strategies and they have created many other pieces of work. That’s why people hire them.

But sometimes the correct color schemes, visual cues and design consistencies are not enough. They have to consider usability, and not just from the standpoint of the customer, but how the actual end-user will interact with the site.

Making a site functional is of primary importance. The user needs to be able to accomplish the task they set out to complete. It should be simple enough to use, yet have the depth necessary to provide a true resource. One area sadly missing from many websites is the concept of fun. As Huizinga points out in Homo Ludens, people like to play. It’s apparently part of what makes us human. A website should look like fun. It should make you want to explore. And, while it should reward you with good information, it should also provide a few surprises to keep up the interest.

Web designers started with what they knew. They had the examples of newspapers and magazines that were already adept at conveying information effectively (Krug, p 34). So why not repeat the success? Web users tend to be an impatient lot. They are scanners of information and don’t view most of what’s on a web-page. It has been portrayed as someone looking at a billboard while driving by at 60 miles per hour (Krug, p 21). What a challenge! The Web Designer has mere seconds of viewing to capture someone’s attention and get them involved interactively with the page. As Krug suggests: “I think the answer is simple: if your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards” (p 29).

This is where the idea of designing a website like a game has great value. The designer who has a sense of the game “mentality” will probably create the most engaging websites. Perhaps the greatest challenge, in spite of making it an arena of fun, is to make sure the user can actually get what they came to your web-page for in the first place.

As with some of the online gaming sites, it may be best to provide a platform for the user to use in the way they wish to. How to do this and provide information will be the challenge of Web Designers as they move away from traditional media models of information seeking and bring Web Design to a new level.

References:

Huizinga, J. (1950). Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon (pp 1-27). Homo ludens: a study of the play element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Krug, S. (2000) . Don’t make me think. Indianapolis: New Riders, pp. 1-39.