Very Cool Designs

I wish you would stop this shorthand crap when you write. This is
usenet, not irc or a cell phone.

Barefoot Kid wrote:

"kchayka" <kcha-un-yka (AT) sihope (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:40279281$0$29598$39cecf19 (AT) news (DOT) twtelecom.net...
|
| If I can't read it, I can't use it. If I can't use it, it's not
| "fantastic" web design by any stretch of the imagination.

most ppl r able to use these sites just fine regardless of wot anal ppl like u say

I freely admit I am not "most people", but I am not anal in this
respect. I just get fed up with sites that break or are otherwise
unusable in my particular environment. You do know what the first 2 w's
in "WWW" mean, don't you? Do you ever think about what that implies?

There is a place for things like Flash, but most sites don't use these
things appropriately. The vast majority of the sites you listed fall
into that category.

| ... I can't consider you exactly qualified to
| judge good _web_ design.

judging from the bland/boring amateurish looking sites u produce i could say the
same about u....

There is an enormous difference between graphic design and web design.
Unfortunately, many graphic designers (or wannabe's like yourself) don't
seem to understand that.

BTW, just because I don't have any training in graphic design doesn't
mean I can't appreciate it when I see it. I just have a much higher
regard for usability and accessibility. There's no reason you can't
have it all, except that most graphic/web designers either don't know
how to make it happen or don't think it can be done at all, so they end
up with sites like yours - failed attempts at pixel-perfect layouts.

FWIW, at one time I was not so different from you. I *knew* all web
pages had to look the same in all browsers (all 2 of them) blah, blah,
blah. Then I made some changes to my PC configuration. It was then I
saw the light, and finally understood what *web* design really meant.
You just haven't crossed that path yet. Hopefully, some day you will.

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kchayka <kcha-un-yka (AT) sihope (DOT) com> wrote in
news:402908d4$0$29594$39cecf19 (AT) news (DOT) twtelecom.net:

| If I can't read it, I can't use it. If I can't use it, it's not
| "fantastic" web design by any stretch of the imagination.

most ppl r able to use these sites just fine regardless of wot anal
ppl like u say

I freely admit I am not "most people", but I am not anal in this
respect. I just get fed up with sites that break or are otherwise
unusable in my particular environment. You do know what the first 2
w's in "WWW" mean, don't you? Do you ever think about what that
implies?

The way I see it, there are three kinds of Web sites classified by what
they're intended for:

1) Sites intended to be *used*: the user comes to the site to *get*
something. Examples would be placing an order with a retail site,
downloading some software from a support site, looking up a word on a
dictionary site, and seeking an answer to a technical question on a
knowledge-base or FAQ site. I call these "transactional" sites.

2) Sites intended to be *read*: the user comes to the site to spend a bunch
of time with specific content (which need not be text). Examples would be
reading news articles or viewing photographs. Most blogs would also fall
into this category. I call these "narrative" sites.

3) Sites intended to be *admired*: the user comes to the site to be
impressed with the designer's skill. Examples would be business sites
whose goal is to make the client's competitors' marketing people shit their
pants (with the client's customers getting the dirty underwear thrown at
them), or portfolio sites designed to show off all the tricks the designer
knows (without providing any evidence that he knows *when* to use them).
Or just about any site whose main point is "I'm kewler than you are." The
user is *not* expected to be able to read the text, if there is any, or to
have an easy time navigating the site (the trickier and more surprising the
navigation is, the better). I suppose I should really call these
"ornamental" sites, but with a few exceptions like the CSS Zen Garden, I
prefer to call them "wank" or "territory-marking" sites.

Most of what Jakob Nielsen writes, for example, is primarily intended for
transactional sites and some of it applies only poorly to narrative sites.
Your stereotypical dee-zyner, OTOH, is mostly interested in ornamental
sites, much more so than typical members of the browsing public are. That
wouldn't be so bad except that they all too often wind up
inappropriately imposing ornamental-site production values on transactional
or narrative sites.

Eric Bohlman wrote:

The way I see it, there are three kinds of Web sites classified by what
they're intended for:

There are hybrids, too, methinks. Brochure type sites come to mind.
They need to initially get the visitor's attention (often visually), but
also need enough good, usable content to keep their attention and
generate those leads.

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