Design Critiques
After last night’s class, I have to say I was rather discouraged. And my site wasn’t even critiqued. I think many of the comments were useful, but some seemed gratuitous and not necessarily designed to help the person receiving criticism. Some things are a matter of opinion. Some things are a matter of design sense. If you take the concept of the CSS Zen Garden as an example, you understand that there is no One Correct Design. Obviously hundreds of designers have contributed designs for the CSS Zen Garden, all with the same HTML code. Who’s the best? Can we really answer that question objectively or is it a matter of opinion? Yes, of course, it’s a matter of opinion. I think that’s what we need to sort out in our class: what is a matter of opinion and what is a matter of good design?
I thought the sites were overall very good. We each have our skills and our areas for improvement. It seems clear to me that with each assignment most of us pick something we want to accomplish and aim for that while letting other things fall to the bottom of the to-do list for that week. At least, this is what I do. I’m here to learn certain things and improve certain areas of my skill set, and I can’t do it all every week. It’s really too much. Especially when we have such a short period of time to complete each assignment. There are clearly some folks who spend more time than others on these projects and take it more seriously, but in the end we get out of this what we put in.
I’ve added some comments on Karin’s site, because I thought she did a really great job and the critique got a little carried away, and on James’ blog. Perhaps I’m saying this because I know that for this project, I worked nearly non-stop on it for the past 10 days or so, and in the end, I think my design is terrible. The process I went through, however, was not. I learned a ton about Photoshop and grids and typography. And about people’s opinions. So, frankly, I don’t want to hear that you don’t like a dark background and light text, that’s a matter of opinion. Many designers are able to pull off very appealing sites with this kind of scheme, and I was trying to create something similarly edgy and different for a hip, cutting-edge place like CHNM. I’m disappointed that I fell short of that aim, but I’m not finished yet…
April 18th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Well, speaking as one whose design was a TOTAL surprise last night (and yes, it really did pass XHTML and CSS validation–but still has a fatal flaw that REQUIRES me to set a height requirement for the wrapper–anyway, enough about that), here’s what I think about your design.
One of your many areas of expertise is organization, I think. With CHNM, you’ve demonstrated that–it’s a huge organizational jungle to bring under control–and you’ve put it in a cutting edge format. No question. I particularly like the Projects Section–the use of graphics to emphasize the content. I can quickly see what’s there and the individual graphics give me a sense of the individuality of each project.
Here’s what would make it easier for me, I think. More touches of color–highlights to quickly draw my eye where you’d like it to go and to differentiate categories of links–just as you have with the Projects section.
Give me a more obvious introduction to CHNM–I don’t see that introductory paragraph amid the many things to look at on the page, and if I am not going to that site deliberately, I might like the intro paragraph to be more obvious. Also, in some ways, it’s a marketing tool for the University, so I’d want to be sure the rationale was clear–brief, but clear. Maybe it just needs a header itself?
The masthead makes me think we’re a third world site–maybe just ditch the impossible task of summarizing world history and focus on the new media imagery or program imagery?
This doesn’t seem as if you fell short at all, especially for the first outing…it seems as if you tackled a gigantic project and one of the hardest kind to do, and brought a new perspective to it–that’s what makes it such a good one.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Laura, I think that Lee Ann’s comments are good. Here’s an observation. CHNM’s site, like Topsy, has grown willy nilly, so it’s the infomation architecture that needs rethinking. As Lee Ann says, it’s the organization. How do you get all that stuff in a form that will promote visitor’s exploration of the site or their ability to find things? Once the you’ve figured out the architecture, a design should emerge. Yeah, I know this sounds like faith-based design, but it works.
I (and a whole lot of other designers) don’t find reversed out type effective–and with good reason. It’s difficult to read. (Yes, some sighted-impaired visitors will benefit, although they might find a 75% gray even better.) To make reversed out work, the type needs to be enlarged and tracked. Often this is difficult in site in which there is a lot of text. You simply run out of room.
You worked on the home page for your project, but it is one page in a very large, text-heavy site. Think about how difficult reading all the reversed out text would be on the “About” page. You can be edgy without reversing out text. CSS Zen Garden is great, but it is also high concept design–designers strutting their stuff. (The Garden designs use a lot of position:absolute, but that doesn’t mean we should all run out and use absolute positioning in our sites.) But that’s not to say that reversed out type can’t work. Most designers recommend moderation.
As for design as personal opinion. Nope. There are visual arguments that are successful, and there are visual arguments that are not.