Inspiration

Are you sending mixed messages to your users?

Background

I am a huge usability/accessibility enthusiast. I admire the combination of form and function, with a focus on the latter. To me, if an informational website is flashy but tells the user nothing, it is not serving it's purpose. With the use of CSS, AJAX, and light-weight, low-bandwidth images, it is quite possible for current web designs to be simple, user-friendly, creative and attractive all at the same time.

There are many times that a fresh idea starts out great. After time, the addition of numerous features and content can have unintentional effects on older aspects of a design. It is essential to revisit your overall design time and time again. Taking a step back is necessary for cohesiveness and usability.

Influences

Jakob Nielsen: When I first read Designing Web Usability a few summers ago, I was instantly able to put a name to my own style of web design. I had been using a usability-focused design style for quite some time though often it was just described as "simple." Nielsen takes "simple" much farther and explains that in use "simple" is far more functional and preferred by users. He also went into detail about user testing, which is something I would like to have more experience with.

37 Signals: Although 37Signals is a web development company, their book, Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points is a great how-to for building a website that functions correctly from the beginning. Which essentially means, expecting things to go wrong and being prepared for them. Implementing usability greatly reduces the chance of user error, though one can never underestimate the clicking abilities of web site viewers, so knowing exactly what to do when errors and bugs come up is extremely important.

CSS Zen Garden: The website and book for the CSS Zen Garden is beautiful, creative, informational and awe-inspiring for all CSS-based web designers. The principal behind the site, is that by simply changing CSS, the content can remain the same while producing an extremely different end result. The Zen Garden sticks true to most of Nielsen's usability/accessibility standards, however, it does not lose creativity. The light-weight images used in the designs are beautiful but still leave the website full to function.

Blending web design principals, standards and graphic design knowledge into one beautiful and fully functional website is a true balancing act and when done right, can turn a purely information-based website into an information work of art.