Sell Ideas, Not Pixels
Jeffrey Zelman said it best…
Our Job is to convey the meaning of design…Sell ideas, not pixels
The Early Years
It took me a few years to learn this on my own. But, the more design jobs I do the more truth I find in this statement everyday. Fresh out of college I had no idea how to do this. In college I simply received an assignment, did it, turned it in, and then received a grade. I was never forced to explain and elaborate on why my design looked and functioned the way it did. I got away with this because I was surrounded by of a bunch of designers that understood basic design principles and could understand my design without a detailed explanation from me.
Real World Wake Up Call
When I got a job as a web designer in the “real world” I soon realized that most people were not well versed in basic design and usability principles. I would show someone a design and it would be judged on how it looked. I was amazed at how few people were able to see past how the site looked. Granted looks are very important when I comes to design, it’s only part of it. I would spend days thinking about and designing a user experience only to get a “yeah that looks nice” response. For some reason I could never get anyone to see past the surface of my designs. Because clients and co-workers couldn’t understand my designs, I often got pushed around and had to change a lot of stuff I worked hard on, simply because my design wasn’t understood.
The Birth of a Salesman
Once I took the time to sit down with people and explain my designs to them, I realized that people were a lot more receptive and grateful of my work. It takes a lot of time and effort to truly go over a design with someone, but it pays off in the long run. I’ll be honest, after i spend weeks or months on a project I’m so sick of it the last thing I want to do is talk about it. But it’s worth your while to muster of the energy to teach people about your design. So now when I present a mock-up or design to someone, I take the time to explain each feature and it’s purpose. I share with people the problems I faced and what I did to overcome them. I’ll even explain some basic usability principles that influenced certain parts of my design. I found it helps to present your design with honesty and openness. If your open and don’t take things personally, you will find yourself getting honest feedback from those around you.
Go Out and Sell
When you have to present your next design. I suggest you take 15 minutes and think about how to present it. What do people need to know about this design? What purpose do the elements on the page serve? Why is this a good design? What problems is this design solving? Try not to mention anything about the look or feel. Sell the meaning of your design by educating those you present it to you. Best of luck to you all.
3 Inspirational Web Design Quotes from Industry Leaders
I recently attended the “An Event Apart” web design conference in Seattle and came back with some inspirational quotes from some industry leaders including Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Jeff Veen. If you are a web designer and don’t know who these people are, you should. They have made huge contributions to the web design world and constantly strive for standards. Here are three memorable quotes that give me inspiration when working on a design project. Hopefully they will inspire you.
“Writing for the web is important, it is an oportunity to establish our brand and help create a positive user experience”. - Jeffrey Zeldman
One of the biggest mistakes we can make as a designer is not to take into account the copy, or writing and text, that is used in our websites. The wordage that we use on our sites can be just as important, if not more important, than the design itself. Take for example Flickr. A minimalist, simple design with large personable wordage that really connects to a user. There are dozens of photo sites up there, but more people choose to use Flickr.
“By zeroing out syles, you can get a more consistent design. Your force yourself to set styles”. -Eric Meyer
Meyer is referring to the practice of resetting your styles at the beginning of a design project. Most people do this by including a style sheet called “reset.css” which set’s many values to 0 (e.g. margin: 0; padding: 0;). A CSS reset is a way to start from scratch. Keep in mind that all CSS attributes, even though they are not in your style sheet, are in fact styled. By resetting them you get a clean slate and can give you peace of mind when styling your site. Check out Eric Meyers page on the CSS reset for more details and good practice.
“We have the power to make people enjoy life”. - Andy Budd
As web designers we can have an impact in a persons happiness. People choose to use the internet for a variety of reasons, but mostly to get enjoyment. By designing sites in a way that engages the user, we can bring enjoyment to their experience and keep them coming back. You can see this happening in the Web 2.0 era through design and utilizing newer technologies such as blogs and ajax which make sites more interactive and engaging. By using these techniques and technologies you can take your site to the next level.
Check back soon for 3 more inspirational quotes.