Taking Your Talent to the Web

11

the project life cycle and a detailed definition of the web designer’s role. If you’d like to hear more about how smart you are for deciding to learn about web design, phone your Mom—that is, if she’s forgiven you for that cheap

floral bouquet you got her.

On the other hand, if you’re ready to plunge into the most interesting aspects of web design, Chapter 2, “Designing for the Medium,” has your name on it, baby. But before you dive into it, we need to make one more prefatory point.

SMASH YOUR ALTARS

With the exception of a few facts, everything in this book is subject to debate. Web design, like the medium, is too new to be bound by fusty rules. When we explain general principles and accepted practices, our goals are to clarify how the medium functions and to ground you in the thinking and methods of most working web practitioners. You will need to know this in order to do your job. But it is only the beginning, and you are encouraged to constantly think beyond everything we tell you here.

For every ten sites that fail because they’ve ignored a certain web verity (for instance, that navigation should be clear and streamlined), there is at least one site that succeeds precisely because it violates this “rule” in a unique and brilliant way. For every hundred sites that fundamentally misunderstand the medium by behaving like static Illustrator layouts, there is one that achieves greatness by doing so.

Most web designers begin each project by considering the end-user. But we know of at least one certifiable web design genius who starts every job by inventing dynamic behaviors he has never seen on anyone else’s sites and then following those behaviors wherever they lead. Remarkably enough, they lead to professional and usable sites whose uniqueness delights precisely the users they were intended to serve. This should not work at all, but it not only does work, it enlarges what the Web can be.

There is stupidity (and there is a lot of it). And then there is innovation and creative rule-breaking that sometimes leads to greatness.

12 WHY: Splash Screen: Smash Your Altars

If your boss or client dictates or forbids a certain web design practice because of some rule in an old web book (or, sadly, in a new book full of bad ideas), we won’t mind you citing this book to counter the argument. But please don’t invoke this book as an authoritative set of web design commandments. This is not a book of rules, and any web book that pretends to be is full of it. Take what we say seriously but stay flexible. Musicians learn scales before writing melodies. These are the scales; you’ll write the tunes.

chapter 2

Designing for the

Medium

THE WEB IS LIKE EVERY OTHER MEDIUM to which you’ve applied your talents and like no other medium you’ve ever grappled with. Everything you know as a designer will help you tremendously, yet nearly everything you know must be rethought. Sounds like a sales pitch—until you’ve actually tried your hand at web design.

The Web is different because websites must function as both documents and databases. It’s different again because the medium is somewhat ephemeral in nature, never looking or functioning exactly the same way for each person who encounters it. Prove this to yourself by visiting any sophisticated site using IE5 on an iMac, Netscape 6 in Linux, and IE4 on a Windows PC. If it looks and works exactly the same in all three settings, we’ll eat our Aunt Miriam’s crepe de chine hat. And these are just three of thousands of possible combinations.

The Web is both more and less capable than print. On the one hand, it provides near-instant access to information, offers rich multimedia experiences, and responds dynamically to the visitor’s actions. On the other, it defeats the designer’s desire to completely control the visual experience.

The Web is different because anybody can make a website, but not everybody can do it well.