Forum Moderators: not2easy
I kind of knew it would happen but #*$! is going on in the web design world?
We seem to have reached a a plateau where it's now completely acceptable to use CSS without being a geek - a LOT of people can put it together so are using it - BUT what is it with the 1990's coloring, lime green, fuschia pink, purple, orange (all together in some cases = yuk!) etc.. and then there's all those AJAX effects making them slow as molasses - Oh I'll admit there are some gorgeous designs out there but there are even more equally c***py ones which remind me so much of the 90's "we can so we will" mentality - is this Web 2.0?
I feel like I've been transported back in time :o
</rant>
What you are seeing is the reason that you pay professional designers. It isn't CSS. CSS has just provided new cans of finger paint to people that just plain can't design. Some people, like most of the Internet pioneers, have accepted their lack of design ability, and have crafted really primitive sites. In fact, it seems to have become a sort of style.
Others, alas, have decided that what the Web needs is more color and the Web equivalent of lime-green leisure suits and pink flamingos.
BTW: I like your Web site. It is nicely designed. You're the moderator. It's your call as to whether or not the URL should be redacted.
[edited by: SuzyUK at 10:25 pm (utc) on Jan. 14, 2007]
[edit reason] personal link (mine or no) has gone..life's a B sometimes! [/edit]
AJAX is the new web toy, the must-have which is invading many sites and wrecking them in the meantime. It is often used for the wow-factor rather than any particular benefit.
One aspect which is pushing the quality of web design back down into the gutter is the resurgence of personal web publishing, via blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace. It's like Geocities in 1996 (isn't there a CSS Zen Garden entry called that?) all over again, with a glut of sites where, if you took away the over-heavy and tasteless design, would leave nothing but a content-less page. In 1996, frames and fantasy fonts were all the rage, now CSS (and AJAX) are being abused in the same way. Do I mind it? Not really, even if I avoid such sites and pages. Personal publishing should always have its place on the web.
What I do object to is professional websites getting overloaded with a heap of fancy AJAX effects and heavy graphics, pages which won't function without scripting and arbitrary barriers to content access. A lot of professional sites use CSS to try to force a pixel-perfect design which degrades into a meaningless jumble of randomly-ordered content when CSS is disactivated.
I think that CSS is now the norm rather than the exception, but there's still a long way to go to improve website design. Although I may have some bias ;) I think accessibility and usability are the the two most important (and most often neglected) aspects of web design which need to be addressed on the web today.
I think accessibility and usability are the the two most important (and most often neglected) aspects of web design which need to be addressed on the web today.
Agreed. Ever notice how quiet the Accessibility and Usability Forum [webmasterworld.com] is?
Wanna p**s off a designer? Mention this guy [useit.com] to them.
Designers would have no trouble if they simply extrapolated their own experiences into their design arsenal. (Unless of course they are hopeless masochists!) For me the underlying rule of thumb for web design has always been the golden one: do unto others as you would have done unto you.
These are not mutually exclusive concepts.
[edited by: SuzyUK at 3:59 pm (utc) on Feb. 1, 2007]
[edit reason] delinked book [/edit]
1990's coloring, lime green, fuschia pink, purple, orange (all together in some cases = yuk!)
A very significant proportion of people using or even designing for, the web now have no clue what it looked like in the '90s - most of them probably. They see those colours as 'new' and 'brave' and, importantly, not blue.
You only have to look at what they do to their myspace sites to see what they think looks kewl. Part of me hopes that their design sensibilities will mature (and fast, please!) but part of me has to reluctantly accept that I'm just an old fart and know nothing about what is enticing or attractive to younger people now.
When my son starts talking about 'back in the last century' I visualise Victorian streets and horse-drawn carriages. But the impossibly old-fashioned century he means isn't that one.
whether or not the URL should be redacted
(My Concise Oxford: "Put into literary form, arrange for publication; edit")
I bet that this is what the wives of adulterous Fleet Street editors say if they hire a hit-man. "I want you to redact him. £10,000 OK?"
redacted. Wow, good word.
Sorry if it sounds pretentious. I'm really pretty much of a good ol' boy in RL, but a stuffy blowhard in CyberSpace.
In any case, that seemed to be exactly the right word for the occasion. I used to interact with a political blog, and the word was used frequently when talking about Administration press releases. It just became a standard part of my vernacular.
I liked the reference to the editors' wives. Good joke. Seriously.
Matt
I don't see the connection with CSS. You can make a lurid pink and lime green web site just as well without CSS as with it. CSS is an over rated, over hyped tool. Useful, yes. God-like, no.
Wisecracks Chris:
It isn't CSS. CSS has just provided new cans of finger paint to people that just plain can't design.
This au contraire is making wider and obvious the difference in between pro and so called pro
Very true ;)
Now that I'm calmer over the whole thing, I actually do consider it a "usability" issue, I just can't read some of them without getting a sore head.
Some of the nicer designs, like I'm seeing a lot of dark/black sites where the text is not contrasting enough to read comfortably, They look very nice with the occasional splashes of orange/lime/purple - I mean I really do like them to look at, just not to read so if I want to read them, yes I just turn off the CSS - that's a usability issue and thankfully I know how best to use it for me that is...
Some of the cheaper copies of nice designs, where they've copy/pasted a template and some chunks of CSS for the lastest "rounded corner box" and put the necessary extra non-semantic HTML in where it fits, then tried to change the color trying to go with the trendy color schemes and not getting it right well they're just so last century - that's what annoys me on both an aesthetic and usability level, though likely I'm an old fart too :)
To me some sites (blogs usually the biggest culprits) are meant to be read - so it doesn't always fit to be ultra sleek/trendy/modern, if you're just showcasing video, art or pictures then fair enough the contrast will be in the art.
I realise AJAX is back in fashion but I never liked too much DHTML effects the first time around, think that is everyones complaint really - and while we're on the subject just what's with all the "Blog Bling", first it was all those little badges now it's how many widgets can you fit in the right column, or on hover
"Opt-Out Widget Viewer button anyone?" ...ooops I'm off again ;)
I don't see the connection with CSS.
I agree it doesn't have to a CSS site, but the sites I was referring to in the OP were promoting CSS Design in some shape or form, either selling design or tutorials - and on looking at their source I could see they were *all* no more than mashed up Blog/CSS templates (that's the bit that irked me)
I realise AJAX is back in fashion but I never liked too much DHTML effects the first time around, think that is everyones complaint really - and while we're on the subject just what's with all the "Blog Bling", first it was all those little badges now it's how many widgets can you fit in the right column, or on hover
That's where they are deviating from one of the original "Web 2.0" principles: simplicity.
The white space and mild colors are meant to reduce the impact of a busy page.
I think the worst offender was PHP-Nuke. When it became the "de facto standard" for all CMS systems, we saw hundreds of these horrific "French Window" designs with dozens of widgets crammed into them. Sometimes it would take, quite literally, four or five seconds for me to figure out where to click next, and I ain't no dummy.
WordPress is, in my opinion, a nice change. They decided to distill the one main functionality from the CMS systems (blog) and refine it. I think they provide a good platform, but you are already starting to see WP sites being warped into "beehives."
Geeks just like complexity and lots of widgets. That's why it's not such a good idea to let them do the design of the aesthetics; unless you are designing a tool for geeks.
I know this, because I are one.
