|
January 27, 2004
Unintended consequences
Courtesy of the bad weather in DC, I'm home early and catching up on some blog entries that have been in the queue for a bit longer than normal. First, I want to offer an olive branch of sorts to Dan Saffer, who was the designer of a site I criticized last week for low contrast. In a comment to the entry, Dan offers the reasonable defense that he was designing for college students, not old farts like me. Like Dan, I really liked the warm blue, although I wonder if reverse type might have solved both problems--increasing contrast while also doing something different. Which gets to the title of this entry (which was originally "unintended audiences"). It's a bit reminiscent of the designing for older browsers issue. How do you handle tiny--or unintended--audiences? Or other unintended consequences of design choices? My personal philosophy is a spin off of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. Call me an optimist, but I think there is a space in which do good design but also keep those designs from breaking for your visitors. (Clearly I'm not a fan of sending people to "your browser is broken" pages.) Not necessarily an obvious (or easy) choice. Anyways, I didn't mean to flippantly diss Dan's design, so mea culpa. BTW, I also meant to point to one of Dan's readings for his class. Some (most?) of them should be familiar to ID/IA/UX fans, but I don't remember coming across this article by Dick Buchanan, former director of the design school at CMU: Good Design in the Digital Age (pdf; an annoying Flash-based version is available by navigating here).
Comments
No olive branch is necessary. I was trying something new out. I should note that I did try it with white text, but the look wasn't what I was going for. Then again, I'm woefully undereducated about color and color theory. Dick Buchanan has some really interesting things to say about Design. That article just skims the surface, but it's a good introduction. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak or, better yet, take a class with him (as I did), I highly recommend it. I wish there were more articles of his online to point to, but as far as I can find, there aren't, which is unfortunate as they are very thought-provoking and inspiring. -- Posted by Dan on January 28, 2004 04:27 PM
Post a comment
Note: Your comment will be reviewed prior to posting to minimize comment spam. Management regrets the inconvenience!
|
IDblog is Beth Mazur tilting at power law windmills. A little bit Internet, a little bit technology, a little bit society, and a lot about designing useful information products. Send your cards and letters to .
search this site
archives
August 2004
July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002
categories
blogs and wikis
business and design content and writing design process education experience design hci information architecture information design marketing and brands multimedia & broadband politics search society & technology usability visual design web design wifi words can't describe
key links
STC Information Design SIG
boxes and arrows iawiki information design journal informationdesign.org infodesign usability sig usable web
groups
aiga experience design
a(o).i.r asilomar institute for information architecture asis&t sigchi society for technical communication usability professionals association
about moi
feeds
gratuitous right-nav promos
|
