It’s been a couple of years since the height of the “kill IE6″ web campaigns, and it took that long to hold a funeral that finally seals its fate.
Of course, the IE6 Funeral is an arbitrary event held by the Aten Design Group last March 4, and this doesn’t really eradicate the browser on computers that can’t upgrade.
Over at TechCrunch, commenter Jeff Carlson jokes: “So if someone uses IE6 to browse the web tomorrow, will their web browser be a Zomb-ie6 browser?” You could say that. After all, IE6 is way past its expiration date, sucking the brains out of web designers and developers with its buggy, unstable, insecure features from an ugly past.
Even Microsoft acknowledges it’s time for IE6 to go, as it actually sent over flowers and this note:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
On March 13, Google will end IE6 support on YouTube, following the March 1 pull-out for Google Docs and Google Sites. Gmail and Google Calendar are next on the list, slated by the end of the year.
Combined with the European government security warnings to upgrade browsers, could Google’s systematic phase-out be the final nail in the IE6 coffin, or is this slow death going to take at least another year?
I really hope this is it.
Or as a like to call it: podcasts that have caught my eye in the past week or so. And they differ in several ways, so there’s sure to be something for everybody. Take your pick:
Confession: It took me a while to realize that this podcast is actually the previously-named You Suck at Web Design, relaunched as a new brand with a new site design. This show isn’t so much a bag of tricks on web design as it is a quirky, personal storybook told by Matthew D. Jordan, but still a must-listen.
This is not just one but seven shows tackling different topics, from photography to Ruby programming, founded just last year by Dan Benjamin. I love the idea of a whole network of shows about the internet, on the internet, and here we have a whole suite for people who make websites. I can think of few things better than that. More networks and more topics, perhaps?
In light of the “circuses” happening in both the Hollywood late night talk show circuit and the web working groups, standardista slash comic strip creator Kyle Weems aka CSSquirrel announced this:
I am in the process of devising a “late night” talk show that the Squirrel will host, featuring interviews with cartoon representations of various web designers/developers/standardistas. It’ll draw from the mighty traditions of the Tonight Show, The Daily Show and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and in theory will be a plug-in free experience brought to you in part by HTML5, JavaScript and vector tree-climbing rodents.
Check out the podcast over at SitePoint, titled HTML5 is a beautiful mess:
The podcast touches on that matter, and spins out to the state of the actual implementation of HTML5 itself, whether there’s a challenge in getting designers and developers to start using it, the issues of accessibility in <canvas>, and how delightful it’d be to move past plugins.
Truthfully, I’m trying to avoid getting caught in the sticky details of how HTML5 is developing at the moment because it only adds to the anxiety (isn’t stressing over Internet Explorer enough?) and diminishes hope (we’re supposed to be moving forward with these technologies already). But it also helps to stay realistic not just idealistic, and drawing back the curtain on how the working groups are actually working on the HTML5 standard is a good way to do that.
I started with this article about the decade that was in web design. (Note: an earlier version of this was done here.) It was not much more than a before and after look at the most popular websites out there. Of course, ten years is a long time in web design so the showcase is a satisfactory way to see how far we’ve come, but not quite enough. There was no discussion on the notable features from the different websites. We don’t redesign sites just because we want a different look, do we? We want them to improve. Answering how those sites improved over the years would be a worthy reference for all the web designers out there. This other one almost nails it, though it focuses on the business of these companies, not web design itself.
I hope the likes of Smashing Magazine or some fabulous curator of web design history would come up with an in-depth study illustrating how web design has evolved over the last ten years. Timelines like this and this could help with that, but still needs mention of developments like:
- the downfall of
<table> layouts in favor of semantic markup
- CSS sprites
- the growth of web typography, from sIFR to
@font-face
- Art Direction in web design
- mobile web design
- the HTML 5 Superfriends
- which website or company popularized which design pattern, from the glossy, candy-colored “Web 2.0 look” to the sleeker, more dramatic “Apple look” (though something tells me Apple is responsible for both)
Here’s another approach to the timeline, and is more of a Q&A over the years, and anybody can ask and answer. It also hasn’t been updated since ‘04, as it was part of the 2005 conference, A Decade of Web Design. Jakob Nielsen also did a backtrack that same year.
I’d also like to look forward. This prediction post is quite adequate (with pictures it would be perfect). I think this passage sums up what’s happened in the past decade and what will happen in the next:
While most these technological improvements tend to make the web a more and more homogenous place, at the same time, there is a tendency to create highly curated design setups that use different designs for each article.
There will always be a dichotomy between standardization and specialization on the Web but it’s only lately that we’ve been able to do so with less crap, more elegance. And I can’t wait to see how doing those two things evolve into even more exciting things in 2010 and beyond.
Need more crystal balls and time capsules? See also:
When we’re not spending time debating on the right way to code websites—CSS, tables, and all—we’re probably stressing over the details that go into the design process itself.
It’s never a one size fits all solution when we’re faced with these issues, but I feel like we’re in this exciting transition in the web design industry where it’s better than ever to reevaluate methods and try throwing curveballs.
Drop Photoshop; mockup in markup
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are more powerful than ever, and designers such as Meagan Fisher and Andy Clarke want us to present live mockups of in the browser instead of in Photoshop. The reasons and advantages are compelling:
- In design, content should always come first—and starting with the markup lets us do that.
- Photoshop does not render type the same way browsers do.
- “Ignorance is bliss”: what your client sees in his own browser is what he gets. No misleading expectations rendered in the static images are created.
Of course you’ll still have to break out Photoshop to create graphical details, but prototyping kits and frameworks should speed things up too. Also, the overall idea is to manage your client’s expectations and move towards a live, realistic mockup instead of a static one.
Show only one mockup
Should the number of design proposals really vary from one client to another? Andy Rutledge is firm on his belief that it should always be one, and the logic is simple:
…if the designer is sufficiently competent there is almost always one best solution to the design challenge.
Dig deeper and you will find that the bottom line is to “keep a tighter reign on the creative process”. Avoid being at the mercy of your client and putting on a “dog and pony show” just to prove you deserve to be hired. You’re the expert.
If you can’t uphold a one-mockup-only policy, be ready to draw the line when they ask for a hybrid of your two or three designs. Or ask for a pay raise.
Ready, set, pitch
I’m just scratching the surface of the design discussions that are already out there, but as both the year and the decade end and 2010 comes rolling in, it’s time to shake things up!
There’s some hullaballoo over this insanely long and diversely designed article on the death of the blog post. Jason Santa Maria, one of the first to talk about this, calls it “art direction in web design”. Smashing Magazine calls it the “blogazine” trend.
And while many people, like me, are thankful this discussion has reached mainstream status, since Smashing Magazine is one of the hottest web properties out there, and their word is basically gospel for a lot of people, others found problems with its actual message.
Let’s start at the very beginning. The title and first paragraph alone make the likes of Shaun Inman cringe:
ugh, I don’t think @smashingmag could have missed the point more. http://shaun.in/g/3j Design for content’s sake, not design’s sake.
Although original talk of art direction laments the lax in creativity that has stemmed from the death of hand-coded personal pages and the rise of automated content management systems that power blogs, I don’t think you should attack the blog post format just because it looks boring. Unfortunately that’s how most people understand the purpose of design—to make things look more interesting, and little else.
Pushing yourself to create original layouts and designs customized to the content of each post is a fascinating and entertaining way to build a blog. [...]
Designing a creative layout for each new blog post, based on the content itself, requires skill, patience, dedication to the content and, most of all, effort on the part of the designer!
Those are pretty good reasons for pushing a custom layout reminiscent of magazine design, but there needs to be more. That’s why it’s important that the term “art direction” should be the term used. It’s more than just a trend. It’s actual understanding of how content—text, images, video, numbers—can be arranged so that it is consumed effectively.
Ironically, many have complained that the article itself is difficult to read. Throwing chunks of content around and away from the typically linear layout for the sake of demonstrating your point is not going to cut it. If people have more trouble reading this way, your design failed and you’re better off dropping the embellishments.
I think overall, Smashing Magazine did a noble deed in introducing the concept to the masses, but it needed to be a little more refinement than your run-of-the-mill list article. The upside is, their topics are certainly leveling up, as with a lot of things in web design these days.
Is this art direction/blogazine “trend” the future? Maybe, maybe not. It’s great to look at the long history of print design and try to apply some part of it to web design, but the best thing about the web—its dynamic nature, from clicking and scrolling to serving API calls and database queries—should be factored in too.
To commemorate the closing of internet dinosaur and free web hosting service Geocities today, October 26, geeky web comic XKCD “redesigned” its site to match the horrible aesthetic (or lack thereof) rampant during the ’90s. Low-fi images (including the requisite “under construction” sign), web-safe colors, <table>s, <blink>, <marquee>, a hit counter, and a “best viewed in Netscape Navigator” disclaimer—it’s all in there. I think the only thing missing is an actual comic about Geocities itself.
Is it safe to say we are finally rid of those horrible-looking and horribly-functioning things now that Geocities is gone? We will always have that side of the spectrum. But it’s a good reminder of how far we’ve come:
- IE6 is now the most outdated browser instead of the most modern. (That doesn’t make its continued existence a good thing though.)
- If you disable images and stylesheets, webpages will make sense.
- Descriptive hyperlinks matter (mostly to curry favor with Google, but still).
- Despite Yahoo!’s terrifying propensity to run its acquisitions to the ground (worried about Flickr and Delicious yet?), it’s easier and cheaper than ever to run your own website.
Still, the timeless adage remains: back up and be prepared! You never know when life will go Geocities on you.
A gallery that only cares about what your site looks like when it’s printed? Ironic, but that’s what printFancy is all about. Remember those niche design inspiration galleries? This site is obviously another example of that. But that’s not all.
Unfortunately, the fact remains that people still print webpages so they can read them in a more comfortable manner; it’s not very environment-friendly, and frankly, weird behavior to people who are in front of the computer 24/7. (Weirder than using IE6.) But it’s a web designer’s responsibility to accommodate that need. No excuses. Even if sometimes, it does feel like creating a whole other website (except if you’re a minimalist, I guess).
And when you manage to create an effective print version of a site, then printFancy is another opportunity to show it off, another incentive to excel in design. Which is not just about creating something looks pretty, but something that fills a need. In this case, the need to print sites out.
(Then maybe the gallery can have a section like this, and one wouldn’t have to hold a laptop the way Jason Santa Maria did.)
Noah Stokes rants about the lack of professionalism in the web design industry. There are several reasons listed, ones involving IE6, Smashing Magazine posts, mentoring, and passion. But this first point got me thinking:
First, stop thinking your client is stupid. Your client is not stupid. I don’t care if they want an all Flash site sized at 800×600 with a dancing unicorn for the navigation. You may laugh at them behind their back, just remember, they laugh at you when OMG, your precious Tweeter is down. We are in the services industry. Get used to it. Your client is your lifeline. Show them the respect they deserve, even if they don’t deserve it.
Admit it: we’ve all mocked our clients and snickered at their choices at some point. A lot of us continue to do so.
There’s a lot to be said about the trials our kind face—dozens of comic strips tell the tale, Dilbert being the most prominent. But when did it become “cool” to act all holier-than-thou over project specifications? What sparked this trend to act like this misunderstood artist, this “chosen one” enduring torturous quests in the epic battle versus this monster of a client? Is it specific to this industry or happening elsewhere too?
Welcome to hell.
Still on the subject of the dark side of the web: I found a contest for the ugliest website held last June. The winner, which turned out to be mytastynuts.com, won a free redesign package worth $1800. Now this could have been a little more buzzworthy if the contest and company site itself looked like there had been thought put into the design. Heck, if you ask me, the current mytastynuts.com looks better, and don’t really have the right to be doing redesigns.
Of course, there’s really no harm in entering a contest where a free redesign is up for grabs—even if it ends up being not much of an upgrade at all—but that’s the problem with web design: the threshold’s too easy to cross.
The ugliest website contest would also have gone viral if the site were designed in the ugliest manner possible. Something that looks like this (without looking like they’re ripping you off). But that’s the other problem with web design: not everybody “gets” good design.
- Many have high tolerance for badly designed sites and bad design in general. Put bluntly, they wouldn’t know if something looks ugly even if it hit them in the face. Sometimes design can depend on a person’s instinct and taste, but it can also suck
- Combine that with “it’s just a lowly website”, not something cooler like architecture, fashion, or an ad campaign, and it’s a steep, uphill battle.
- And to top it all off, there’s the thin line between design and decoration, which is the absence of purpose and real content. A website, more than any other designed entity, is nothing without content and function.
Don’t be such a downer
Okay enough with the pessimism. How do we get rid of said problems? Eliminate ignorance, for starters. Buckets of inspiration from CSS galleries and image bookmarking sites are always good to have, but it’s also important to know exactly what we should avoid.
I recommend grabbing some eyedrops before clicking any of the links below:
The next step is figuring out why said sites are on the list. But that’s for another (ugly) day.
Twitter definitely upped its game as its new homepage rolled out today (viewable only if you’re logged out). Now its greatest strengths are featured front and center: real-time search and trends. A wise upgrade no doubt, but there’s something off about the design.
On any other website I wouldn’t have been bothered by this. A fair amount of blue, green, gradients, rounded corners, and overall sleekness reminiscent of a certain OS: these are all “acceptable” characteristics of good web design these days. The problem is, this is not what Twitter is about.
To me, Twitter is warm, organic, friendly—all because of the homepage (and the Fail Whale, of course). Sure, it used stock illustrations instead of commissioning original ones, but they were distinct enough. None of the cliche sunbursts and clouds, or the decidedly safer shades of blue.
And just as Twitter exploded in popularity, so did its branding. There’s an official Twitter bird, but whenever I see any other illustrated bird—hawk, owl, or any other kind—I think of Twitter. Heck, when I see that almost distinct light shade of blue (forget Tiffany & Co.!) or a rounded typeface, I think of Twitter. And while LOLcats have cemented their meme-dom for a while now, it’s really Twitter that shot them to stardom when they were used as error messages on the site.
Sure, all these inside jokes, cutesy mascots, and pastel hues may seem immature to some, and maybe the higher-ups thought it was time to get Twitter a personality makeover. What did they replace it with, exactly? tweaked Web 2.0 slash Apple design elements? Try again.
The old design elements fit Twitter’s image of sheer simplicity, of 140-character answers to the question “what are you doing?”. And today, with the homepage redesign, that image has started to slip away.
