FLASH: What drives the process- great design or great code?

[Tom Green]

I have been pondering whether I am a curmudgeon who just happens to to

pick on Dave when I get fed up with some of the sites developed by

pimply faced 15 year olds that always get raves on this list. I notice

that my last screed, not aimed specifically at Dave, kicked off a great

thread regarding the use of typography in the design process.


Anyway, before I head off to FlashForward I thought I would share a

couple of quotes I picked up through this month's issue of Applied Arts

magazine and solicit some response from the list.


The following quote tends to reinforce why I unload on certain sites.


Design is design:" writes Stuart Ash, a principal of the Toronto firm of

Gottchalk + Ash, "the principles are the same whether it's a printed

page , a piece of furniture, a building or a web site: consistency,

continuity of look, attention to detail, sensitivity to the viewer,

clarity, legibility. But some web designers are using totally different

criteria: they are trying to reinvent the wheel. It's only a matter of

time before good designers and communicators get involved and start to

make sense of it."


When I criticize on a site, whether it is one designed by my students or

another individual, it is never personal. Instead it always revolves

around the principals outlined by Stuart. Yet when I question the

choices made the howls of outrage are rarely justified on the basis of

"consistency, continuity of look, attention to detail, sensitivity to

the viewer, clarity, legibility." They key to my unhappiness with Dave's

site was not Dave's abilities. It was the typography. It was sloppy,

from the point-of-view of design standards and didn't show attention to

detail, clarity and legibility. Those are key aspects of typography

whether it appears on the screen or on the printed page. Different

media. Same fundamentals.


Have we become so enamored with the technology of Flash that solid

design takes a back seat?


Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future, interviewed in the

latest copy of  @issue ( this is a twice yearly publication put out by

Boston's Corporate Design Foundation and the Potlatch Corporation)  says

this may just be the case.  According to him, the interface is dead.


"Interface as a concept made sense when computers just squatted on our

desks and waited for us to do something. Computers , for the most part,

had no idea that anything was on the other side of the screen. But now

through a combination of sensors, bandwidth and everything else, we have

blasted the screen away. Computers are invading our physical space,

moving deeper into our lives. That is why designers need to eliminate

the word 'interface' from their vocabulary and think in terms of

interaction."


How does he see the difference between interface and interaction? " With

interface you can pretty much predict everything. It involves a limited

number of formal, very stylized exchanges. With interaction you must

design for the unexpected. Computers no longer wait for us to do things:

they're doing things on our behalf� Interaction implies a deeper

symbiotic relationship."


I just don't see this with a lot of sites developed in Flash and posted

to this list. They are all interface. All technique. Not that symbiotic

relationship that harks back to the principal of "sensitivity to the

viewer".


Then again, according to Saffo, maybe we don't need designers. He likens

designers to "the 'Rodney Dangerfield's of the industrial age- they

don't get no respect." As he sees designers will become an increasingly

integral part of the business but there will be a decreasing level of

respect for what we do. We are starting to see this occur around the

actual coding of the design. It is getting quite complex.


"it is a lot easier for computer scientists to pretend to know about

design, even though they are ignorant of the subject, than it is for

designers to pretend they know computer science. Computer scientists and

engineers are going to end up driving the process. Hopefully, they will

be willing to collaborate with designers."


So here we have opposite views. Ash thinks designers are going to take

over. Saffo says if they do, they will become irrelevant in the general

scheme of things.  I suspect we are starting to see the first

glimmerings of Saffo's predictions on this list.


My question: , " Is there a point where collaboration between the coders

and the designers will find equilibrium or are we heading for a business

where the code drives the design?"






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