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9rules and Organic Design

December 31, 2003 | View Comments (4) | Category: Design

Summary: The new 9rules site and its organic design

When designing a new website it seems that many companies wish to employ the "waterfall model" of design that had plagued the software industry for many years. The underlying problem with that model is that it is too rigid. If a change needed to be made from something done in the second phase, yet you were already in phase four, you were generally screwed. Websites fall under the same trap because many of them are done by firms that have deadlines and budgets to work with, therefore preventing any iterative design or as I like to call it "organic design" from occurring.

When beginning the design of any site I have to understand the purpose of why I am creating it. Initially this is easy to do, but many designers seem to forget this purpose towards the end of the design. I cannot count how many times I have told myself that I am going for a minimalist design and ended up with something looking like the equivalent of a three-year old's coloring book. With the new 9rules I figured that I wanted a site to promote the company and the fields that it specialized in. Pretty basic considering that is what most company sites should do.

My next step involved figuring out what was the most important information for me to communicate to my potential customers. Information Architecture and Information Design are still relatively young fields and many companies are unaware of the fact that their are people out there who specialize in these fields that can help them. Even more so, most people are clueless to the fact of what these two fields actually are. In fact, a clear definition of Information Design has yet to be found since it covers so many disciplines. Therefore, my first goal was to educate the reader as to what the two fields are and that is the reasoning behind two articles that are front and center. They are distinct so color had to be used to help show this distinction.

My second goal involved providing enough information to the user so that when contacting me they already had an idea of what I entail. This involved three different sections: news, articles, and case studies. The news section shows the current progress of the company. If you don't hear anything new about a company, how can you be sure that they are even doing anything? The articles section will showcase articles (obviously) that I will write that cover the field. These are important because, if done properly, they begin to offer legitimacy to myself. It's no good telling someone you are a quality web designer with no work to show. Clearly written and professional articles go to show that you are actively involved in the field and possess the knowledge to get the job done. The case studies section helps to show companies how I have helped others. Even after reading the two intro articles on information architecture and design, many people will not be aware of how I can help them. Case studies go to show how it is done. These three sections are all equal in importance, yet are not as important as the intro articles. Therefore, they get secondary status and equal size.

The last section on the homepage are some questions that many will ask when going through the site. Even after going through the first and second levels it is still possible that many companies will doubt that they require my services and therefore the third section is there to hopefully provide that last bit of assurance.

When I was envisioning whether to go liquid or fixed, borders or no borders, I began to write down what came to mind when thinking about information architecture. Quality information architecture, or any architecture for that matter, usually implies a quality structure is established. Something solid and firm for a site to build on. Hence I decided on the fixed layout with a clear distinction of sections through borders and colors. If I was going to create a site preaching the values of information design, what value would it be if the information was not easily found?

Branding

Definitely something that is overlooked by consultants and other freelancers. Throughout the year I am going to look into building the 9rules brand. I have no formal education or training in this kind of stuff so everything done will be through my own ideas. That is why you see a strong resemblance between whitespace and 9rules.

Organic Design

First I will freely admit that the content on the site is garbage. It is more like a preview to everything. I have a problem about having to get things out from the development server and to a live server. I get anxious so that is why the site is there in the first place. Also having it live gives me even more incentive to continue work on it without slacking.

I have never created a site that was perfect the first time it was done. The reason for this is that I am not sure of the user patterns for the site or the trends that the site will take. Therefore I have to tweak here and there until something acceptable comes about as was the case with whitespace. On larger sites I can see this being a problem because many believe that any changing of a website can totally ruin the branding of the site and mess up the users since they are used to the old way. Sure that can be the case with a complete redesign, but it shouldn't be the case with organic design.

If we are to believe there is no such thing as perfect web design, then why are we to believe that there is a such thing as a "finished design"? As mentioned before, companies that commission their web development out to outside firms do not really have the option of organic growth because there are timelines and such to deal with. However, companies that manage their own websites seem to overlook the fact that small tweaks here and there can benefit greatly over a redesign a couple of month down the road. If the site is simply one where the content never changes then sure there may be a design that just works for the occasion. But sites that evolve and grow should have designs that grow with it.

This goes beyond making aesthetic changes to a site. This involves structural changes. If you do not wish to change the "feel" of a site then don't, but the look may need a small makeover. One of the reasons for information overload is that information is not being designed to effectively reach the user. I may go through 20 blogs in a day, but since everything is structured the same very rarely will I remember anything I. If more sites spent time looking at how their sites are actually used then they can get closer to the perfect design that they may be striving for.

As for the 9rules site, everyone can take it as another live "design" project if you want. I do not really recommend that companies unleash their sites this early to the public, but I figured if I was going into the new year with high expectations of myself, I might as well do it with the new site.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!

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