My last post about another BBC’s website copy and upyourego blog post about the same subject made me think about design standards that came from authority site like the BBC.
I’ve always been a partisan of the diversity in web design because if we were adopting the same design everywhere that would make the web uninteresting and dull. Even if the design in itself is perfect.
Yes but…
Now you also see some website that are completely unusable because of their original navigation or layout. As a user I don’t like being lost on the page and adopting some kind of standards, in navigation for example, would help people know where to look for basic element like home button, shopping cart or latest news.
In other words, usability should be prominent over design. And because usability standards are reasonably permissive you would still be able to make unique websites.
Different targets, different rules
For example a web design site targets people how know websites well and have seen many websites before. In this case you can get away with more things and place links or elements in non conventional places. An active web user knows how to search information on a page and how to identify elements. If I follow my reflexion those website could take a rather creative path to display content.
The opposite would be a governmental website, where the targeted audience range is wide. Here things need to be obvious because their is still a majority of people that don’t have access to Internet at home and are not used to it. If all those kind of website where built in the same general pattern then it would make them more usable as people would recognize the general pattern.
There are two factors that seems makes standards:
- Authority: when a very important site like the BBC changes its design the other actors in the industry tends to follow the style.
- Number: when you think blog, what design come to your mind? 2 columns, right side bar with navigation, home link at the top, list of post on the main content area…? Well, that’s pretty much 90% of the blogs at the moment. And because that’s the pattern across so many of them, you kind of expect each to be like that.
All of that seems to say “be less creative” but in fact it’s the opposite. finding better way to display information is the real challenge here. There is room for improvement but maybe more following a progressive enhancement path than radically moving everything around.
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