A Word on Contemporary Web Design
Published on February 5, 2014 (❠July 12, 2024), filed under Development and Design (RSS feed for all categories).
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.
These days, and as juror for Design Made in Germany I see a lot of websites, many a designer knows how to make a page appear spacious, even grandiose. Alas, as many appear to have forgotten how to use space effectively, putting the content on the table, designing honestly and with focus.
Figure: Six random sample pages using up to 6,270 pixels length for two sentences. The truly spectacular ones broke the screen-capturing tools (seriously).
It seems to have become an art form to start off dumbing down content âforâ the userâor to begin with very little contentâ, grab a number of unrelated but pretty-to-look-at photographs or icons, garnish them with âHTML5,â misspelling intended, and throw it all on one endlessly scrollingâwhat could go wrongâpage.
This type of contemporary web design is harmful. Itâs harmful because itâs package design. Itâs not content design. Personally, Iâve had it.
This type of design may match up nicely with the substance-void world the media shows us, but if thatâs the best our profession can create then itâs not just my personal preference to endorse Craiglist-esque forms of design, but also my conviction that 1999 pragmatic table-based design has won a late round.
Web designers must be able to produce websites and apps that can handle, not attempt to pity, information density. Yes, thereâs negative space and such. But thereâs also such a thing as missing the point.
PS.
If you like a taste of numbers, a few months back, already suspicious of information-poor sites, I looked at a sample of popular sites and counted the words in the immediately visible section of an arbitrary 1,024Ă768 pixels browser window. Apple: 13 words; Microsoft: 15 words; CNN: 124 words; the New York Times: 294 words; Edward Tufte: 390 words. In comparison: a tweet: ø <23 words; a text message ø <27 words. But thereâs more to do and say here, and so itâs fair to point out problems with these numbers.
About Me
Iâm Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iâm a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. Iâve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, Iâm somewhat close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for OâReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.
If youâd like to do me a favor, interpret charitably (I speak three languages, and they do collide), yet be critical and give feedback, so that I can make improvements. Thank you!
Comments (Closed)
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On February 5, 2014, 20:55 CET, Felix said:
I was with you until the PS. Youâre comparing a range of different site types, which isnât entirely fair (not sure if that was your point). As you can see, the types cluster: product pages have 13-15 words visible, news pages 124-294, academic literature pages 390. I would argue that design done right actually fits the content - and these examples do that just fine.
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On February 5, 2014, 21:11 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Thanks FelixâI added a clarifying sentence. I decided to just make it a note in the post scriptum for that reason. These are also not quite the sites Iâm referring to in the main article. Some of them just happen to suffer from too lowâmy argumentâinformation density too.
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On February 6, 2014, 10:24 CET, Steffen said:
If the 15 words visible are exactly why Iâm on this site, thatâs indeed focused.
I believe itâs very hard to find out what to put on a page and what to remove to met usersâ expectations. Perhaps these pages do know - and achieve their goal to be referred to in a stumbleupon page đ -
On February 6, 2014, 13:06 CET, James said:
I think some designs are made for the designer rather than the target audience and people are placing lots of pretty pictures on sites to catch the eye but are not particularly informative. Donât get me wrong you want to make sure you get peopleâs attention, but you also want people to be able to find things on your site, sot here has to be a practical application in there somewhere.
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On February 7, 2014, 17:51 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Steffen, if âwhy youâre on their siteâ is not one way street though.
(The spammers are quick this time. Comments removed.)
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