Friday 28 February 2014

Welcome To iTunes - Vanseo Design

Welcome To iTunes - Vanseo Design

Welcome To iTunes

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Vanseo Design podcast. My name is Steven Bradley and I’ll be your host for the next few minutes. Huh? I can already here some of you thinking, “Umm, yeah Steve, we know who you are and we know what site we’re on. How about just getting on with it.” Well it’s possible that not everyone listening does know these things.


Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen. You can also subscribe in iTunes

A few days ago as I’m recording, which means a few weeks ago as you’re listening (or reading) I submitted my podcast feed to the iTunes store. I guess I didn’t do anything wrong or break any rules and a few hours later they accepted the feed into the store.

While I don’t expect there will be many people who only know the show through iTunes, I figured there could be some and an intro to start things was probably in order. Maybe in the coming weeks, I’ll look for some music to open and close the recording and make what’s here a little more professional.

I assume most of you find your way here through my general rss feed whether in a feed reader or through email. Maybe you periodically visit the site or were directed here via a link. I’m guessing the majority of you who listen do so in an rss reader or in a browser.

If you prefer you can now subscribe through iTunes and listen however you listen to iTunes podcasts. Just visit the iTunes store and search for Vanseo Design and you should find the show. You can also click the link below the audio player above or the one a couple of sentences back. If you do subscribe through iTunes I certainly won’t object to a 5 star review.

Why and How I Submitted to iTunes

I had planned to submit to iTunes when I first started recording, but I was somewhat self conscious with the first few. I wasn’t sure whether or not the audio quality would be ok and I wasn’t sure how coherent I’d be in speaking and recording myself. My coherency of lack there of is likely still in debate.

Given my apprehension, I didn’t submit right away and then I kind of forgot about it. Expanding the reach of this site feeds into a few of the goals I set for 2014 and in the last month I started thinking about it again. I forget what it was now, but something reminded me last week that I wanted to submit to iTunes and I thought I should go ahead and figure out what I needed to do to make it happen.

I researched what I needed to do technically and discovered it wasn’t much. I use the Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin for WordPress to display the audio here. PowerPress really did all the work. It created the feed I would need to submit to iTunes and submitting was filling out a simple form. The previous link will open the form in iTunes.

There was one thing I did need to do. Every post that should be in the feed requires me to add a link to a custom field PowerPress creates. I had done that for the first recording, but none after. A couple hours of copying and pasting and I was all set. It was a pain, but hardly anything difficult.

Then I submitted and waited till the next morning when I received an email welcoming me to iTunes.

I don’t expect to find myself at the top of any iTunes charts in the near or distant future, but it is another avenue for people to find their way here and it does offer another way to listen for anyone who has a dedicated podcasting app or prefers to listen some way other than listening in a browser.

Future Change and Feedback

While it’s not a huge change, being included with all the other podcasts in iTunes, is a change and one change seems like a good time to think about others. I’m now considering where I should take this podcast. Until submitting, I wasn’t really thinking of changing anything. Now I am wondering if I should make some changes and thought I’d ask for some feedback.

What do you think about what I’ve been doing the last year or so with these recordings? What would you like to hear over the next year or so? Are there specific topics you’d like to hear me cover?

If you haven’t been listening long or just found the show through iTunes, these recordings are usually ordinary blog posts that include audio. This particular one is a bit different, but they usually share some thoughts about design, development, running a freelance business, or something related to those topics.

You can find all the recordings including their written versions at vanseodesign.com/tag/podcast/ if you’d like to listen to older podcasts or read the associated post.

Initially I was writing the post first and after it was done I’d record it. I didn’t record word for word. I used the post more as a guide. I changed that over the last couple of months and now record the podcast first. While editing the audio file I’ll take notes on what I said and then turn those notes into what you’re reading now. I think it helps make the recording more spontaneous and natural.

For those of you who have been listening awhile how has the above process been working for you? Do you like having both an audio and a written version? Do you prefer one over the other? If so which one?

How about the recordings?

  • How is the audio quality?
  • Am I expressing myself clearly enough?
  • Would you prefer longer shows? Shorter ones?

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Any and all feedback is welcome. Again if you do like the show head on over to iTunes, subscribe to the iTunes feed, and leave me a wonderful 5 start review. If you don’t like the show…well …you can skip the review part and just leave a comment below or even email me if you prefer. Feedback of any kind really is welcome.

Looking Ahead

Part of why I started these podcasts was to get comfortable recording my voice as a precursor for creating screencasts. It’s another of my goals for the year and I have been slowly practicing.

I’m finding I can record my voice pretty well in a screencast, but I still have trouble talking and typing code at the same time. Trying to focus on both at the same time is so much more difficult than some make it appear. When I focus on one I lose my focus on the other and I’m working out when that happens so I can stumble less. I think within a couple of months I’ll be ok and doing well enough and you’ll start to see screencasts here.

Other than the push toward screencasts and adding an intro to the start of these recordings, I don’t have anything planned at the moment. It just feels like I should and I’ll be happy to listen to any suggestions you have.

Sorry today’s recording was more about me than design or freelancing or one of the usual topics. I’ll get back to something more design related next week.

Once again if you’d like to listen to the show via iTunes you can search the store for Vanseo Design or you can click this link. If you do I’d appreciate a review to help others find the podcast and hopefully find the site as well.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post Welcome To iTunes appeared first on Vanseo Design.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tuesday 25 February 2014

What Role Do Aesthetics Play In The Design Of A Website? - Vanseo Design

What Role Do Aesthetics Play In The Design Of A Website? - Vanseo Design

What Role Do Aesthetics Play In The Design Of A Website?

Posted: 24 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Has this ever happened to you? A potential client gets in touch and while describing their project they mention that it shouldn’t cost much because it doesn’t need to look pretty before they add it doesn’t need a lot of design.

Design does not equal making things pretty, but a significant number of people seem to think it does. They think aesthetics are design and somehow think all the other things designers do just happen on their own. I’m sure you’d agree that good design doesn’t just happen.

They may not equal design, but aesthetics are part of design. Where do they fit? What role do they play? Where should they come from? As I’ve been doing the last few weeks, I want to think out loud, this time about aesthetics and web design.

forjats-entrada.jpg
Català: Barcelona – Palau Güell – Forjats entrada. Image by Josep Renalias and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

What are Aesthetics?

I guess we should start by asking what are aesthetics?.

aesthetics (noun) — a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, esp. in art.

When form arises out of function you get design. When function arises out of form you get art.

The key word in the definition above is beauty. Aesthetics are the making things pretty part of design that our clients often confuse with the entirety of design. They’re the how it looks part of design as opposed to the how it works part.

Every design will have some kind of aesthetic. Whether or not you consciously create an aesthetic for a website it will have one and people will see it and judge it based on the beauty they perceive in it.

Even more, that aesthetic is going to be involved in the communication between site and viewer. You might as well take advantage of the opportunity. An obvious question you might ask though, is where should the aesthetic come from? Can it be anything or should it be unified with the rest of the design?

Form Follows Function

I’ve long been a fan of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. If I’m near a building he designed, I’ll go out of my way to visit it. My fondness for Wright naturally led me to Louis Sullivan and his famous quote.

Form ever follows function

The quote tends to be paraphrased as form follows function, which is how I’ll refer to it here most of the time. The idea is that the form, (the shape, the look, the aesthetics) of an object should be based on its function or purpose.

I agree, though I think the phrase sometimes gets interpreted to suggest that form is less important than function and that function can never be influenced by form. This I don’t agree with. I think form and function share more of a symbiotic relationship with each other.

It makes sense for the form of an object to arise out the purpose of that object. How a thing looks should communicate the essence of what the thing is and does. When the aesthetics of a design adhere to form following function, the design seems inevitable. How could it look any other way?

At the same time how the thing looks influences how it functions or at least how well people using the object perceive it to function.

As I said above aesthetics add another layer of communication to an object. This layer of communication doesn’t have to specifically be about the function of the object. It’s an opportunity to communicate something in addition to how it works.

Aesthetic Details — Designing For Emotion

A few years ago Aaron Walter wrote Designing for Emotion for A Book Apart. If you haven’t already read it, count this as a recommendation that you should.

Aaron is a lead designer for Mailchimp and the site features prominently in the book’s examples. Aaron shares how the addition of Freddie the Chimp to the Mailchimp website helps communicate messages like fun, welcoming, and friendly. The site’s aesthetic communicate the personality of the brand that is Mailchimp and I presume the people who work for the company.

These aesthetics hardly arise out of the function of the site, which is to manage email lists. I’m guessing few people would use words like fun, welcoming, and friendly to describe email lists and yet Mailchimp communicates this message independent of its function through an aesthetic layer.

That fun message may not arise out of the function of mailing lists, but it does have a function. It makes the site more enjoyable to use. It increases the perception of site usability. The aesthetics don’t change the function of the site, but they do change how the site functions.

In a sense form has influenced function. It’s quite possible that someone will choose to visit, not to manage any of their lists, but to interact with Freddie for a few minutes and make themselves smile. I have no doubt that happens at times and so form has added a new function to the site. To make someone smile.

The function of a site to manage email lists isn’t about fun and whimsy, but the aesthetics of that site can still be fun and whimsical. By making use of the aesthetic layer to communicate something outside the function of the site, Mailchimp communicates something about the company and contributes something new to the function of the site.

Movin’ on up Maslow’s Pyramid

If you’re not familiar with Maslow’s pyramid, the basic idea is that we all have a hierarchy of needs. At the base of the hierarchy our needs are physical needs. We need to breathe and eat and sleep. Further up in the hierarchy we have needs based on safety, then love and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization at the peak of the pyramid.

Maslow’s pyramid gets translated into different industries all the time, with design being no exception. How a thing works and how it functions sit at the base of the hierarchy of design needs pyramid. Moving up the pyramid we encounter reliability, usability, proficiency, and creativity.

If you ask someone which products, which services, which websites they love, they’ll likely point to sites where great attention to detail has been given. They’ll point to details that often have little to do with function and simply delight.

It’s at the top of the pyramid where we find visitors to our site feeling delight in our designs. Does delight have to arise out of function? Can’t it also arise solely out of form? Can we bring in a form from the side like Freddie the Chimp to delight our visitors so long as it doesn’t contradict function. Assuming needs at the base of the pyramid are met, can we introduce something not dependent on them at the top?

Freddie isn’t an obvious outcome that arises from the meaning of managing a mailing list, but Freddie doesn’t contradict anything about managing an email list either. He comes in from the side reaching (or perhaps swinging) from the top of the pyramid.

Think about easter eggs hidden in software or a website. They may never be found and they may express nothing about the function of the site, but they make us smile and build a stronger connection between us and the site.

You may not need to include the top of Maslow’s pyramid into a design, but it makes a lot of sense to do so. Aesthetic details will go a long way toward creating passion for your product and increasing customer loyalty.

Aesthetics Can Go Too Far

The recent change from a skeuomorphic aesthetic to flat one is an example where aesthetics can go too far. What began as a way to communicate something meaningful evolved into a way to delight before it went too far.

Designers tried to one up each other and push the aesthetic further in order to out delight each other. At some point they pushed it past a breaking point for many people and everything broke. Instead of delighting, the aesthetic annoyed.

The delight designers were trying to impart worked better when it wasn’t so expected and when it was done in moderation. When expected it couldn’t delight. When done in excess it became tiring.

Unfortunately the aesthetic had become the design. Some designer’s forgot that the underlying function, reliability, and usability were important. They confused style for substance and thought all that was required was to slap on the latest trendy coat of aesthetics.

Form not only stopped following function, it went as far as to assume it didn’t need to consider function. While it didn’t need to arise from function, it couldn’t ignore it or compete with it. Form started to think it was function. It isn’t. It started to act as though function didn’t exist. It does. Form and function work better when they get along and not when either forgets the other.

Summary

Aesthetics aren’t design, but they do play an important role in design. How a thing looks influences those who use it and it contributes back to the function of the thing being designed.

The aesthetic of an object are ideally based on what the object is and does. However, an additional layer of aesthetic meaning can be added to provide new and different communication and even expand on the function of the object.

Aesthetics can be pushed too far and forget where they come from. When form stops thinking about function, the aesthetics of a design can become tiresome.

Form can lead and influence function at times, but it can’t replace it. When form arises out of function you get design. When function arises out of form you get art. Art is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t design.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post What Role Do Aesthetics Play In The Design Of A Website? appeared first on Vanseo Design.

Friday 21 February 2014

Why Your HTML And CSS Mastery Are Not Enough - Vanseo Design

Why Your HTML And CSS Mastery Are Not Enough - Vanseo Design

Why Your HTML And CSS Mastery Are Not Enough

Posted: 20 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Shortly after the new year started, Jeff Croft wrote an article titled, Web Standards Killed The HTML Star, which attracted my attention. It was’t so much for what the article was specifically about, but because what it said connected to something I wrote around the same time on design becoming a commodity.


Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen.

Let me walk you through the ideas in Jeff’s article and then talk about the connection to my article.

HTML and CSS Gurus Need Not Apply

Over the years there have been many front end developers who’ve mastered html and css to do their work. They’ve earned guru status by understanding browser quirks and quirks in the the html and css languages.

I can remember a time not long ago developing sites in multiple browsers. You’d do a few things in Firefox and then test your work on IE or Safari before adding a few more things while checking Firefox again.

There’s less need for that today thanks to web standards. I now typically build a site to the standards in any browser and little needs to be changed after checking another. In fact, I now rarely test in other browsers until the end.

Web standards have really reduced the need for the guru who’s html and css mastery comes from knowing quirks. That means more people can enter the field of web design, because less mastery of html and css is required.

The point of Jeff’s article is that more competition means the gurus of today need to diversify their skills if they want to remain employed.

Design is Being Commoditized

Around the same time Jeff was publishing his article, I was publishing one of my own. Mine talked about how the market for web design services is maturing and segmenting and how a segment of the market is seeking commodity design.

Customers in the low end of the market will sooner use things like WordPress themes and services like Squarespace and their design tools. In large part that’s due to the lower cost, but cost alone isn’t driving this change.

These low cost solutions may not be as good as a custom design at the high end of the market, but they have become good enough for many and probably most. They really have improved beyond the minimum level of good enough.

The need to diversify as a result of standards reducing gurus is really part of this same discussion. It’s how we need to think about our services and how we need to think about running our businesses in the years ahead.

I think the competition Jeff talks about won’t necessarily come only from people offering design services. Some of it will certainly come from more designers entering the industry, but some will come from tools that can do the job well enough for both less experienced designers and even our customers who will do more of the work on their own.

What Can You Master

There’s still a lot to master in regards to html and css even as the standards have reduced the need to master quirks. It’s not as though all the quirks have gone away or will go away any time soon. But there are other things you can do.

First standards don’t make it easier to write code that’s

  • modular
  • efficient
  • maintainable
  • performant

Each of these things has been part of the mastery of html and css and will continue to be part of them in the future.

We can look deeper in the specs. There’s more in them than many of us realize. Recently I wrote an article for Webdesign Tuts+ about the z-index property. The comments show that many designers weren’t aware of everything associated with z-index. I know I wasn’t before spending time in the spec.

It’s similar for many other properties. There are more layers and depth to much of the code we work with, which leaves plenty of room for mastery.

You can master how html and css are combined into effective layouts. Standards won’t make our layouts better by default.

You can also gain css mastery by keeping up with new specs and looking ahead. Things like flexbox, css grids, regions, shapes, exclusions, and many more things aren’t commonly used yet. The majority of designers and front end developers won’t know how to work with them at first. You can stay ahead of the curve to gain mastery over your craft.

Better Tools are Coming

We should keep in mind that the tools to develop sites are getting better and making it easier for non-developers to enter the field. WYSIWYG editors are producing better code. Consider Macaw, which might become a tool many of us are using a year or two down the road.

Tools like these will open the industry to more people who don’t need to master html and css in order to develop sites. A few of these tools are already good enough for some and will only become good enough for more.

I’ve talked a lot about how I think designers should know how to code. I don’t think it’s a requirement to design, but understanding code only makes you a better designer. Some of the tools that will come will probably reduce the reason to learn code. The tool will produce good enough code and perhaps the extra knowledge won’t take you as far.

And our customers will also have access to these tools and will use them. They won’t be designers and may not design the greatest sites, but they will have tools to develop their designs beyond an acceptable level.

It’s Time to Do More

We need to be thinking about what we can add above and beyond our current skill set to push ourselves further up the market. Learning more languages and writing better code are a start. Another option is that we should be developing more of the tools the low end uses.

We need different and more diverse skills. If all your html and css mastery is based on knowing a few quirks you may be in trouble. You’re going to face increased competition from more people finding it easier to be designers and from your clients turning to tools instead of you.

We’re going to get hit at both ends. There will be a greater supply of web designers and a reduced demand for their services. It’s in our best interests to learn a wider set of disciplines and appeal to different segments of the market that will still appreciate custom design.

Jeff’s article started a conversation. I’ll leave you with a few of the articles I found that continued the discussion.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post Why Your HTML And CSS Mastery Are Not Enough appeared first on Vanseo Design.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tuesday 18 February 2014

What Does It Mean To Design Websites Responsively? - Vanseo Design

What Does It Mean To Design Websites Responsively? - Vanseo Design

What Does It Mean To Design Websites Responsively?

Posted: 17 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Last week I was thinking out loud about the subjective nature of design. It’s only one question about the nature of design that’s crossed my mind lately. Jason Grigsby recently posted some thoughts on the Cloud Four Blog about what makes a design responsive. It’s a good article as well as a good question. How do you define what is and isn’t a responsive design?

As you can guess I want to offer some thoughts of my own and talk about how I think about responsive design. First let me give you a quick overview of Jason’s article and encourage you to read it in full.

A blank canvas on an easel

How Do You Define Responsive Design?

After raising the question about what it means for something to be responsive, Jason goes right to the source. From Ethan Marcotte’s original article he pulls out the technical bits that make a design responsive.

  • fluid grids
  • flexible images
  • media queries

Seems clear enough, but things get fuzzier when you consider specific sites. Jason uses Google+ as an example. If you load the site and resize your browser, Google+ seems responsive, but is it? There’s a separate mobile site for one. Google+ also doesn’t use media queries the way we usually think about them. Should we still consider it a responsive site?

Responsive design is less a set of techniques and more a change in mindset

At what point does a responsive site stop being responsive? Jason offers a list of things you might include while developing a responsive site that aren’t considered part of responsive design. You should read his article for details, but the again the idea is how many non-responsive things can you add before your responsive site stops being responsive?

In the end Jason returns to the source and asks Ethan Marcotte for his opinion. Let me pull one quote from Ethan’s response.

In the long run, “being responsive” is simply designing for the web the way it was intended.

That’s really how I think about responsive design. It’s the big picture thought. Let me walk you through some of my earlier days learning and designing websites so you can understand my thought process.

The Fundamental Difference in Designing for the Web

Long before hearing the phrase responsive design, I’d been thinking about the issues responsive design addresses. Back when I was first learning to design websites, I took some continuing education courses at the University of Colorado, mostly thinking the certificate it was leading to would assist me in getting a job.

In one class we were being taught how to use html tables to layout a web page. Yes, this was a long time ago. I had taught myself html before taking the class so it was a simple enough exercise. My mind drifted to whether or not it was better to use absolute or relative measurements.

My first thought was that relative measurements were the obvious choice. Why wouldn’t you set the width of the table and tables cells in % so they could fill up the screen and adjust to it? I set the measurements in % and watched the few lines of text we were working with stretch from edge to edge of the browser.

I was hardly a designer at the time, but I was pretty sure what I had just created wasn’t good design. If memory serves it was a 3 column table, with two narrow vertical columns on the side and one long horizontal line of text in between them.

Hmm? Maybe absolute measurements were the way to go.

Fixing the width of everything with px wasn’t any better, though. Sure, I was able to control the design and create something more usable and visually appealing. Then I’d resize the browser and watch as the content was either partially off screen or displaying far too narrow in the middle of it. If I knew the size of the browser all would be good, but I couldn’t know the size of the browser in advance.

Hmm? Both relative and absolute measurements have problems. Now what?

Again I was hardly an experienced designer or developer at the time, but I had stumbled on one of the fundamental questions of what it meant to design for the web. I spent many of the years that followed thinking about the question.

My Early Years as a Web Designer

A year or so after the course I was designing real websites for real people. I still didn’t have a good answer to the relative vs absolute question. Most of my initial designs opted for a hybrid approach.

I typically featured a sidebar or two that I would set in px. The main content column would then be sized in % and allowed to grow to fill the screen. I did my best to minimize how long text could grow, setting certain widths to something less than 100%. As the browser was resized empty space would grow between the fixed and relative columns.

It wasn’t a perfect solution. The main column would still grow too wide and the space created wasn’t purposeful in any way. Over time I joined the the crowd and developed entirely fixed-width layouts letting the space outside the design grow and contract with the browser.

These sites were aimed at the most common resolution, while ensuring they still worked well enough at the next most common sizes. Like just about everyone else at the time, my designs were built to be 960px wide.

I was never quite content leaving it there. I sometimes used a bit of resolution detection to make a few changes. Later when I was developing float driven layouts I moved sidebars to the right, specifically so they could drop below the main content when the browser couldn’t accommodate both in the horizontal space.

I was at least thinking about how my designs would look at different resolutions even if I didn’t yet have a good solution.

Then Came Responsive

That’s where I was when I first read Ethan’s original article about responsive design. At first I wasn’t sure what to think. Like many, I’d settled into a solution that seemed to be working. I wasn’t looking for a new technique even though I knew what I was doing wasn’t really the best solution.

It took me a couple of reads, but then it hit me. Responsive design wasn’t just a new technique. It was an entirely different way to think about web design. It forced everyone to think again about what it meant to design for the web.

On the surface it gave us tools so our designs could adapt to different resolutions. It resonated with me as something much more though.

Responsive design is accepting something we all knew, but did our best to fight and ignore. It’s accepting that designing for the web is different than designing for print. It’s accepting that the canvas we work in is unknown and out of our control. Forcing it to act like the fixed canvases of print won’t work. We need to accept our loss of control in order to better understand the things we can control.

What it Means to Design Responsively

If you want a simple definition of responsive design, it’s a set of techniques that enable designers to create websites that adapt in response to their canvas. The more you get into responsive design though, the more the techniques lead to new questions and problems to solve.

Imagine a fashion designer trying to create a shirt for a person who’s height and weight might vary each and every time the shirt is worn. That’s what we’re facing.

Responsive design is akin to the change from Newton’s physics to Einstein’s physics. We had been designing for a specific case, a single moment and condition, while ignoring all the other moments and conditions. We were trying to force people to view our sites under conditions most favorable to us, instead of accepting that we didn’t get to decide the conditions.

We clearly can’t design for an infinite amount of specific cases. We can’t test in every conceivable device. We have to instead change how we think and design systems that can adapt and respond to their environments.

That to me is what it means to design responsively. It goes far beyond a simple technical definition of responsive design.

  • Is your site designed for more than a single static possibility?
  • Does your site work well across a variety of devices and device characteristics?
  • Can your design adapt itself to devices that don’t yet exist?
  • Can your site change dynamically with the canvas it’s viewed in?

If it can do the above, it’s responsive. I don’t care what techniques it used to get there. To me the idea of responsive design is less about a set of techniques and more about the change in mindset we’re undergoing and will continue to undergo for the foreseeable future. The techniques are less important than the mindset and far less interesting too.

Responsive design is the change in thinking to accept that you aren’t designing for a known canvas and are now designing for an unknown one. It’s the mindset of how you can design a system that responds to its environment instead of forcing a specific set of conditions on your design.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post What Does It Mean To Design Websites Responsively? appeared first on Vanseo Design.

Friday 14 February 2014

How To Be More Confident In Your Design Decisions - Vanseo Design

How To Be More Confident In Your Design Decisions - Vanseo Design

How To Be More Confident In Your Design Decisions

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

Earlier in the week I was talking about the subjective nature of design. I closed with the idea that you can’t really know if your designs and your design decisions are right or wrong or good or bad. You have to trust your judgement and be confident in your choices.


Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen.

You want to learn to make better design decisions and have confidence that they’re the best decisions you could make at the moment you make them. You want to have the confidence not to second guess yourself. You can change your mind later, but don’t second guess your decisions before making them.

Improving confidence is a topic I’ve discussed before, but it’s a very important one and it’s a topic you can’t talk about too much. At the risk of repeating things I’ve said before, I want to talk about improving your confidence in general and then talk a little about confidence and design.

Thoughts to Improve Your Confidence

On Monday I said we need to understand that design is subjective as is everything that includes us in some way. You can’t know for certain if you’re right, which to some is troubling. However, it also means you can’t know for certain that you’re wrong. I think it’s fear of being wrong more than doubting being right that makes us less confident.

the consequences you imagine will come about from a bad decision are always far worse in your mind than anything that might actually happen

Even though everything we do is subjective to some degree, you should do your best to be as objective as possible. You’ll never get to 100% objectivity in your decisions. Remember human beings are subjective by definition, but keep trying to be more objective.

You can start by trying to understand yourself better and identifying the internal processes that guide your choices. Do what you can to understand your biases, your opinions, and your feelings, in order to lessen their influence.

Learn more about whatever it is you’re trying to make a decision about. The more informed your decision the better your confidence will be. Knowledge helps sort the good information from the bad and helps your decisions become more objective. There’s a reason the saying is knowledge is power.

Knowledge is one thing, but you have to practice as well. The more you practice anything, the better you get at it. In part because you learn more and understand more in doing and in part because practice leads to muscle memory, which is just as important in making decisions as it is in playing tennis.

Always know that you’re better off making the wrong decision than making no decision at all. You can learn from decisions you later decide were poor. You can’t learn anything if you don’t make a decision at all.

Try not to overwhelm yourself by doing too much at once. Learn one or two things at a time. Practice making a few types of decisions. Make it easy. Be more confident in what you order off the menu at a restaurant. Be more confident in your choice of movie or what to watch on tv tonight. These things seem small, but they’re practice that adds up.

Perhaps most important, realize that the consequences you imagine will come about from a bad decision are always far worse in your mind than anything that might actually happen. Things rarely turn out as bad as we imagine they might.

Confidence in Your Design

Everything I said above about confidence in general applies to having confidence in your designs as well. The more confident you are as a person, the more confident you’ll be as a designer.

When it comes to learning I think the major topics are the fundamentals of composition, typography, layout, color, and aesthetic details. Pick one and learn more about it. Then pick another and continue.

Practice what you learn. Don’t wait until you know everything. Just jump in and start designing something. It’s not like you have to show anyone. My first designs were awful and my first attempts at designs today are often equally as awful. Again you don’t have to show anyone these initial attempts, but…

You should show your work as soon as possible. I know it can be scary, but the sooner you’re willing to let others see your work, the sooner you can gain from their perspective and experience. Be open to feedback from others, though don’t assume someone else’s opinion is more valid than your own.

Focus on your strengths more than your weaknesses. You build confidence from your strengths. No matter how minor something might be, if you do it well, use it as a base from which to grow. I thought layout was a strength in my early designs. It’s not that I was good, but I thought I was stronger putting together a layout than working with other aspects of design like type and color. Focusing on layout gave me confidence to get better at everything.

Don’t compare yourself to other designers in the sense of it being a competition. You set yourself up for failure when you do. If you compare yourself to someone you think better, then you know in advance you’ll lose the competition. If you compare yourself to someone you don’t think better, it’ll be a hollow victory.

Compare yourself to yourself. Compare how well you design now as opposed to 6 months or a year ago. As long as you continue to work at it, you will get better, and seeing your progress will improve your confidence.

Do study other designers who you think do things better than you. If another designer is better at working with color than you, study how they use color. Ask yourself why you think they’re better. Do they combine colors better? Do you choose colors that communicate well. Figure out why you like their work better and apply it to your own work.

Closing Thoughts

Don’t be afraid to make design decisions. Not every one will be great. I make poor decisions all the time. Everyone does. Making a poor decision is better than making none at all. It’s an opportunity to learn and do better the next time.

It’s rare that the consequences of a poor decision will cause irreparable harm. If you choose to drive over the side of a cliff, then yeah, it’s probably the last decision you’ll make. Choosing blue instead of red won’t lead to the end of the world.

Realize that all designers and all people who engage in creative pursuits lack confidence at times. Think of the person you think is the greatest designer on the planet and I guarantee that person thinks their work is garbage much of the time. That person wishes he or she could design as well as someone else who they think is the greatest designer on the planet. It’s what it means to be human and it’s what it means to choose a life of creative pursuits.

In any situation make the best decision you can and trust you’ve done your best. You can evaluate your decision later when the pressure is off. Think if you could have chosen better and why. Then next time use what you learned to make a better decision. The more you practice making design decisions, the better you get, and the more confident you’ll be in your next decision.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post How To Be More Confident In Your Design Decisions appeared first on Vanseo Design.

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Tuesday 11 February 2014

Good Design Is Subjective - Vanseo Design

Good Design Is Subjective - Vanseo Design

Good Design Is Subjective

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

How does one arrive at a design solution? Is design the inevitable conclusion of applying objective principles to a problem or is it the end result of more subjective decision-making? Something in-between perhaps?

During a recent conversation, someone suggested an idea I had for an article about design wouldn’t work because it would be too subjective. It would be based on my opinion rather than objective principles. My reaction was to think so what.

Design is subjective. Any design you encounter is the result of a number of decisions made by one or more designers and most, if not all of those decisions, carry some measure of subjectivity. A lesson I’ve had to learn in my journey as a designer is design decisions aren’t absolutely right or wrong. There’s a lot of subjectivity in them.

Darts stuck in a dartboard

Human Beings are Subjective by Definition

A couple of definitions make clear the difference between something being objective and something being subjective.

  • objective (adj.) — not influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions.
  • subjective (adj.) — influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Every designer brings a unique set of skills, intuition, experiences, and decision-making abilities to the mix

The difference is us. When something of ourselves is injected into anything, whether it’s our feeling, opinion, or taste, things becomes subjective. When was the last time you completely removed yourself from a decision you made?

We may not always be aware the role our subjectivity plays in what we convince ourselves are objective decisions, but it’s always there. Despite our best efforts we can’t remove the personal completely.

Let’s face it. None of us is even 100% aware of all the psychological stuff that goes on inside us and makes us do the things we do. How could we possibly be entirely objective doing anything. If you or I design something, by definition subjectivity enters into it, because you or I enter into it.

Guidelines aren’t Absolute Rules

Design principles are more guideline than absolute rule. They’re along the lines “if you do this, then that is likely how it will be perceived” or “when people in the past did it this way, here’s how it turned out.”

Yes, there are fundamental principles that are more objective than others. There are principles with plenty of data to support them, but ultimately there’s subjectivity in all of them.

We’re given guidelines about type such as 50–60 characters per line of text. Some will suggest up to 75 is ok on a screen. Still, others have performed studies that suggest longer lines are quicker and more efficient to read and even lead to greater reading comprehension.

How can a choice in typeface or type pairing ever be anything other than subjective? Will everyone feel the same thing upon seeing Helvetica? Georgia? Comic Sans? We have guidelines to suggest how those typefaces might make people feel, but ultimately when you choose a typeface, it’s you choosing based on how it makes you feel or how you think it will make others feel.

Layout? Grids seem rather rational and objective don’t they? Who decides which grid to use? How do you choose the size of grid units and fields? Are there rules that tell you exactly where to place elements inside the grid. Does every element need to fall on the grid or can some be placed off the grid? Who decides?

None of us sees color exactly the same way. Show 50 people the color red and they’ll see 50 different hues of red. How could that be anything other than subjective? Color theory helps explains some characteristics of color and what happens when colors are placed near each other, but in the end different people will see color differently and most of the meaning we derive from color is cultural.

Do I even need to explain how aesthetic details are subjective? You might choose them based on an objective desire to unify a design concept, but who again chose that concept? How exactly was it chosen? Would every designer come up with the exact same concept for the same design problem? Would you come with the same concept 5 years from now as you would today?

Designers Make Subjective Decisions

If design were truly objective then giving the same design problem to several designers with the same knowledge and skill should inevitably lead to the same resulting design. It won’t and it never will.

You’d probably recognize similarities between the designs, but they wouldn’t be the same. Every designer brings a unique set of skills, intuition, experiences, and decision-making abilities to the mix. We bring our subjectivity, which is the context of our lives.

Designers make decisions. We make a lot of them when designing anything. We usually have so many decisions to make we start by defining constraints to eliminate many possible decisions and options as quickly as possible.

Some of these constraints lean to the objective side, but hardly all. It would be impossible to make an objective decision about every possibility a design might consider. Experience tells us we don’t have to. We can set a few constraints based on some subjective things and still be fine.

That’s not to say our choices can’t be rational. They should be. We should do our best to have reasons for our choices, but we should also accept that many of our reasons will be more subjective than we might care to admit. Again we’re human and by definition subjectivity enters into our decisions.

We define constraints and develop concepts based on our interpretation of the problem. Who we are, where we’ve been, our experiences, our instincts, our voice as designer, our voice as human being, and even our mood for the day shape our interpretation. When these things change our interpretation changes as well.

Learning Design Subjectively

I consider myself a rather objective person, at least as far as people can truly be objective. When I attempt to learn a subject, I seek its objective principles. I want to discover the absolute truths in the subject I’m learning. It’s how I initially approached design.

Design fundamentals came across like objective things, until the moment I had to apply them. It seemed objectively obvious that aligning elements to each other in a design created order, but why align this element to that one instead of the one over there? What made one a better choice than the other? The answer has less to do with an absolute rule and more to do with subjective experience.

At times I’ve struggled when it comes to using type and color. I’ve come to realize it’s because there are no objective rules for what I’m after. I want to know the rule that says this typeface communicates joy while that one communicates anger. I want to know the rule that tells me what color to use when I want to express elegance and what color to use when I want to express adventurous.

It doesn’t work that way. If I want to choose a typeface or color based on what it communicates and expresses I have to look at a lot of typefaces and colors and decide for myself what I think they communicate and express. It’s up to me to build a library of subjectively chosen options in order to help me later make what I’d like to think are objective decisions.

The guidelines can help us decide, but ultimately it’s our subjective choice. Whether we succeed or not will depend on whether those viewing the sites we design receive what we tried to express.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve always urged others to be as objective as possible when making decisions and I’ll continue to do so. I stress learning and gathering as much information as possible in order to help you make decisions more objectively. I think we should spend more time critically thinking about our designs and those of others in order to understand the reasons behind the decisions we make.

Having said that, I’m fully aware that it’s impossible for us to make completely objective decisions or look at anything with an entirely objective eye. By definition anything we do or touch becomes subjective because of our involvement.

For some that’s a scary proposition. How are you to know if you’re right or wrong? How you know if you’ve done well or done poorly? Welcome to the human race. You can never know with absolute certainty.

Don’t let it scare you, though. While it means you can’t be sure, it also means no one else can be either. It means your opinion is valid. If you think a design good, then it is. If you think it bad, then it is. For you. Learn to have confidence in your design decisions and opinions.

Your opinion will likely change the more you understand design principles and why they exist. Your opinion will change the more you think about design and the more design decisions you make. Your opinion will change as you come to understand why another designer might have made a particular choice.

In the end it’s all subjective.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

The post Good Design Is Subjective appeared first on Vanseo Design.

Friday 7 February 2014

The Connection Between Aesthetics And Usability - Vanseo Design

The Connection Between Aesthetics And Usability - Vanseo Design

The Connection Between Aesthetics And Usability

Posted: 06 Feb 2014 05:30 AM PST

A few weeks ago I was reading the article Apple Turns Technology into Art by Ben Bajarin. For those of you not familiar with Ben, he’s an industry analyst who covers consumer products. The article talks about Apple’s products and how their visual appeal helps customer form an emotional connection with them.


Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen.

I think I’m a good example and thought I’d share why I switched from using Windows laptops to Mac laptops a few years ago and why aesthetics matter.

From Windows to Mac

I work on a Macbook Air now and my very first computer was original 1984 Macintosh, but in between I’ve owned quite a few Windows machines.

About 6 years ago I was working on a Dell Latitude laptop, which worked well and I liked using. It wasn’t without issues though. I’d been using it a few years and was getting ready to purchase something new.

How a thing works is more important than how it looks, but how it looks will affect your perception about how it works

I had been thinking about switching to a Mac for a few reasons. While I never witnessed the blue screen of Windows death, the computer was slow to start in the morning. I’d turn it on and go do something for 10 minutes before it was usable. It was probably the anti-virus software more than anything and that same software would bring Windows to a halt a few times a day as it updated. Regardless of the reasons the laptop hung too many times each and every day.

Another reason I thought of switching was wanting a better way to test websites across platforms. OS X didn’t come for sale without a new Mac. Windows could be bought separately. It seemed like the easiest way to run both was to buy a Mac and run both operating systems on it.

I was nervous about switching and wondered how easy it would be, but I had confidence in myself and then I read a post by Dan Thies which convinced me there wouldn’t by any issue in making the change.

None of the above is the reason I actually switched, though. As I do now, I was reading the blogs of a number of designers, most of whom used Macs. I’d see screenshots in posts and watch screencasts (particularly those from Chris Coyier at CSS Tricks) and I’d think how much I wished the software I used looked like the software I saw in the images and videos in my rss reader.

I wanted to use those programs. I wanted my operating system to look as nice as the one I kept seeing. I wanted a Mac.

Then one Wednesday afternoon my Latitude died. It was out of warranty and since I was thinking of buying something new anyway, I went to the nearest Apple store and a few hours later was setting up my new Macbook Pro.

Aesthetics and Usability

I could easily say I switched because of browser testing or to stop facing certain issues. I could justify the purchase, but the main reason was the Mac looked better to me. It was more aesthetically pleasing to my eye.

I didn’t switch because I thought the Mac was a better machine. I didn’t think it was a worse machine either. Features, specs, and performances simply weren’t a purchase consideration.

The aesthetics made me want to use the Macbook more. They made me want to explore new apps and the operating system itself. The way the machine looked made me want to open it up first thing and work on it all day. It made me want to try programs that could help me become a better designer and business owner.

The greater willingness and desire to use the Mac improved it’s usability for me. It’s not that I didn’t explore the system when I was using Windows. I am curious by nature, learn quickly, and knew my way around Windows. Still it helps to want to explore than to explore because you have to find a fix for something.

Aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder and you may not agree that a Mac and OS X looks better. That’s fine. I’m not suggesting either of us would be right or wrong. I’m saying my aesthetic taste preferred OS X. It gives me daily inspiration because I find it aesthetically beautiful. You’d be just as correct to feel the same way about Windows or any other operating system.

Research and Studies

There are plenty of studies showing how people perceive an interface affects the usability of that interface. When people consider an interface more aesthetically pleasing they find it more usable.

It may not seem rational, but it is true. People buy, use, and interact with things more on emotion than logic. We use logic to rationalize and justify many decisions after we’ve made them, even when those decisions were made based on emotion.

I can easily list reasons to justify my purchase of a Mac a few years ago. I can use these reasons to show how my decision was objectively a good decision. Deep down I know my decision was an emotional one based on the aesthetics of the interface and the machine.

A Reminder About the Importance of Aesthetics

I’m sharing the above, not just to share. First I’m relating the above as a reminder to myself that aesthetics are important even as they are subjective and rely on your judgment and design eye.

As a designer I’ve always looked to basic principles and design fundamentals to improve my skills. I think if all you ever do is follow the most basic of principles and use them as guidelines, your designs will be more attractive and reach above a minimum level of aesthetic beauty.

I feel as though I’ve done a good job of this over the years. I’ve learned the principles and applied them to my work. At the same time I know there are certain types of aesthetic details I don’t yet have the skills to pull off.

With this post, I’m reminding myself not to be satisfied with what I can do, but to learn to work better with what I can’t do. I hope it’s also a reminder for you.

People outside the design industry often equate aesthetics with design. Some think all designers do is make things look pretty. We know otherwise. We know that that how content is organized and how navigational systems are built are part of design. We know that a designer can lead the eye around the page and ensure important information is seen. We know these and many other things don’t just happen even if some of our clients think they do.

Designers push back against thoughts that design equals aesthetics so we can help others understand the value we bring. In doing that I think we sometimes push back so much we forget that aesthetics do matter and are important. Design isn’t only making things pretty, but making things pretty is an important part of design.

How a thing works is more important than how it looks, but how it looks will affect your perception about how it works. An aesthetically pleasing product gets used more. An aesthetically pleasing site gets visited more and shared more and will generally be seen as working better.

Download a free sample from my book Design Fundamentals.

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