With the advent of new millennia, post dot com bust, the web industry has taken huge strides to lift itself up like a Phoenix bird; rising from its ashes. We must be fools not to acknowledge the fact that we are living in a web world. A new web renaissance is taking shape right in front of our eyes. The computers are getting smaller and smarter. Gone were the days when we required bulky workstations to do our work. Now are the changing times, where we interact with smaller and smarter devices. We are living in a knowledge society, where knowledge flows on mobile devices, tablets and other smart devices. The interaction medium has totally changed, a new paradigm shift is taking place where we are not restricted by technologies but we have it on our side to make our lives simpler. Web is the new medium by which we are always connected no matter where we are.

Web 2.0 has already achieved a cult status, and now Web 3.0 is knocking on our doors. Rich websites and applications are coming up. Social is the new mantra, every website and application wants to go social. Web 2.0 has greatly influenced the look and feel of the websites and applications. Earlier the websites used to be static HTML text with some tags, but now we have got rich and dynamic websites & applications with great emphasis on the look and feel. We can get astonished by just looking at them and “wow” is the word that first comes up on our mind. Use of rich colors, modern typography, massive banners, jazzy effects are already fascinating the common audience. But still I won’t call it a great design. Mostly these effects just add to the “wow factor” on the minds of the users of these websites and applications. So what do we call a great design?

Many dictionaries provide loosely coupled definitions and a glance at the design section in a book store confuses the reader even more. Although, we define it with a noun, design is not a ‘thing’. Instead, we should be more focussed in knowing what leads to great design? A great design is a continuous process. In the book “Bringing Design to Software”, [Terry Winograd] and other contributing authors emphasized and contributed to this answer by providing a perspective on what people do/ should do when they design. The attributes of a great design are: (1) Design is conscious; (2) Design keeps human concerns in the centre; (3) Design is a dialog with materials; (4) Design is creative; (5) Design is communication; (6) Design has social consequences; and (7) Design is a social activity. These attributes also hold true while designing websites and applications. With the absence of these attributes a good website/ application would fail in its objectives to make a bond with the clients and/ or users.

The internet is full of good looking, rich and dynamic websites & applications. Now, with the ever evolving technologies and platforms the design and development can happen much swiftly. And trust me; much better technologies and frameworks would be coming in the near future. But despite of having such technologies, we are forgetting one major ingredient that would make a good website/ application into a great one. The ingredient is ‘Us – the users for whom these websites/ applications are build’. How many times have you used a website/ application that looked good from outside (the look and feel perspective) but when it comes to using, it turned out to be a nightmare experience. I believe at least once a day. And what do you do in the end? You feel frustrated, distraught and helpless that you couldn’t able to use such websites/ applications to get your work done and finally you bounce out. It happens all the time. No matter how aesthetically a website/ application is build, if you (the user) can’t use it, then it doesn’t work. It is as simple as it is. A good design always keeps the human concerns at the centre i.e. it should be usable, provides enjoyable experience to the user and has utility. With the absence of these user oriented attributes, the website/ application would fail to achieve its business objectives as well. It’s the users for whom these websites/ applications are designed & developed. If we ignore the users in the process of making such aesthetically pleasing and rich websites/ applications then it will be termed as a piece of art with hardly any utility, user experience and usability. Because in the end it is the users for whom these websites/ applications are build and they are the sole audience who are going to use them.

Hence a good design would only look great when it is usable.

Thanks for reading!! Many more articles to follow.

References:
Terry Winograd, Bringing Design to Software [online], © Addison-Wesley, 1996
Available:
http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/bds-intro.html [accessed 20th Feb, 2011]