I read an article recently on Wired’s blogsite about Douglas Bowman, Google’s design visual lead leaving the giant because “an obsessive, engineer-heavy, data driven-culture made it impossible for him to work there anymore.” Wow, I’ve been there too. I have worked for companies that would hold meetings to plan for follow up meetings.
So how does a design professional balance their experience, talents, and instinct, with the cold, stark reality of functionality? Sometimes we hold our ground and eventually the powers that be go along with our reasoning. Sometimes we bite the bullet, keep our mouths shut, and go along for the ride. Bowman mentions, “that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.”
On one hand, data is the law. Just the facts ma’am. It defines who, what, and where. From a pure business standpoint, it’s easy to surmise that data should determine design. The arguable point of this is that presentation has a large part in the effectiveness and usefulness of data. Design professionals use actual logic to display content and data. Elements are positioned with actual reasoning and order for specified colors and imagery.
As a designer, I’d say that I lean towards form. The planned presentation of data determines how effectively it communicates and how accurately it is interpreted. As a businessman, I’d say that function sits on equal ground. Data drives business. For that matter, data drives just about everything. Form is simply art without function. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
I don’t blame Mr. Bowman for leaving Google out of creative frustration. I’ve done it myself. I don’t blame Google for being who they are either. They’re #1 for good reason.
Ultimately, balance is the solution to form and function. How’s that for sitting on the fence?
There are 3 Comments About This Post
Rob Adler Says,
Very interesting article. It goes back to the simple fact of evolve or die. If a company you’re with isn’t evolving with the times, of course they’ll cut costs. Most likely, the cost will be you.
Just more proof that in today’s world you need more than one main skill. :)
Carl Aron Says,
As a programmer, I’ve found myself on the other end of the stick… where the design has been determined before the function has been worked out.
On a website with dynamic content, it can be hard to fit the information, and the tools to navigate that information, into a design that was made before we knew how complex the data was.
In the end, though, I’ve been lucky enough to work with designers who meet me in the middle. They will adjust the design to fit the data, if I will try to give them as much control over the design as I can.
There’s a reason I’m a programmer, not a designer… my designs are terrible. Also, as a programmer, I have the sort of mind where data is usually clear to me, regardless of design. So noone should be surprised that I think data has to drive the design, or that design should start after the overall structure of the data has been outlined.
However, presentation can make a huge difference in the readability and usability of data for many people, and cannot be ignored.
Years ago, I started trying to separate the design from the content. Then, it usually meant that the designers were free to design the outer shell, while I had control of the center contents. In the content, I would use standard tags, and the designers could control the font, color, size and spacing of the content that I put in, by editing those styles.
But they couldn’t really control the design or layout of the content… they were limited to styling the content HTML that I made up. If my contents was a table, they couldn’t re-arrange it without asking me to change it.
Lately (probably way behind the cutting edge), I’ve been working on building pages where the whole design (not only the font styling, but also the layout) is almost entirely in the CSS… where the actual HTML code I create can be made to look very different if you use a different stylesheet. I’ve seen designers do amazing things with a list, if the and tags have CSS classes assigned to them that they could define. The difference from my previous efforts is that I don’t say if the list is left or right, or stacked on top of other content, or really anything of the sort… By staying away from tables, and using DIVs with CSS, I can give the designers control over almost everything. Of course this requires that the viewer isn’t using an ancient browser that doesn’t understand more advanced CSS.
On the horizon, I am exploring the option of outputting data as XML with no layout or styling of any kind, and the designers building an XSL file that controls the layout and appearance of the data. Again, this would require viewers using the latest web browsers. In addition, an XSL file is a little more like programing than HTML, so it’s not ideal for many designers… I’m still searching for the best way to do this.
There are two factors to balance. First, you want to balance design and data, so that design facilitates the usefulness of data, second, you have to find a way for each part of the team to do what they do best, without asking the programmers to design or the designers to program.
B Grady Says,
I agree that you must have both form and function to create an effective online presence, but how does one choose one over the other? I’ve seen some fabulous-looking websites that were as shallow as a sidewalk rain puddle. Conversely, I’ve read really useful information on websites that you wish you didn’t have to turn your eye toward to get what you need. Screaming orange pages with bright green letters….ouch! Or flashing ads that prevent you from being able to focus on the content you came for…oh, my aching head. Or just the opposite, the ones that >whisper< “I’m dull.”
The most beautiful experience is when you find a designer who successfully marries the two and makes your vision even better than you dreamed it. That’s why I like working with CommTech. I love knowing that I can throw out any idea, no matter how wild, and it will be given serious consideration. Sometimes an idea will “stick” as I have presented it; other times it serves as a launching board for something far, far better.
My website needs always start with function – what’s my message, what’s my purpose? But being a bit on the creative side myself, it doesn’t take me long to move to the form side and that’s really where I find my comfort zone. I would stay there if I didn’t have a designer who can gently pull me back down to earth and remind me of how I got here in the first place. CommTech knows how to read between the lines, intuit the emotions behind the ideas, stay focused on the larger task at hand, and – in the end – make you feel that it was all your own idea!
I think it’s a rare individual who can use both sides of his brain equally well. I’m glad I have found a web designer who does just that!
Bonnie Grady
Grady Association Consultants (GAC)