LATEST ENTRY

DESIGN | Noah Brier

Usability and Design

Why do you think that usability and visual design aren't often associated with each other?

June 23, 2006 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 1 COMMENTS

Over at Bokardo, Joshua Porter asks, "Why do you think that usability and visual design aren’t often associated with each other?" The answer he includes from Luke Wroblewski is this: "Well Curt Cloninger once wrote that usability experts are from Mars and graphic designers are from Venus, so it could be that. But truthfully, I think it stems from the fact that many people aren’t versed in what determines how we make sense of what we see."

My take on this problem is that the worlds are not intertwined. Too many designers are not versed in coding and usability and vice versa. In too many cases the process is incredibly fragmented. Information architects go away and work on architecture which a designer receives and then passes on final design to coders. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be able to do each other's job, but they should at least be versed in all facets of the process. I've met web designers with no coding experience. That's all well and good, but if a web designer doesn't understand some of the basic limitations of the web its going to create serious issues.

On a deeper level, though, I think this is a problem with people's definition of design. Everything that goes into the final user experience should fall under a 'design' umbrella. If you want to call it something else, that's fine, but the point is that it's a unified process. Usability/visuals/architecture/code all should act together to create something that a user walks away from feeling satisfied. Luke explains it like this: "the two disciplines of visual design and usability don’t have an opportunity to develop a shared language about the way they are communicating concepts to end users. Were more of those conversations to happen, I think you’d see more of a convergence between the two."

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY

LEAVE A COMMENT

First name, first and last, whatever you feel like.

Required, but not displayed (so don't worry about spam).

If you've got one, flaunt it.

You can use some HTML (a's, br's, p's, oh my!) if you'd like, if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it.
REMEMBER ME?

COMMENTS

1Charles

I always associate the "designer" role to be one reserved for the seasoned veteran. To become a printmaker (which was the route many painters & illustrators used to take to make their work accessible), it meant spending years in the print shop as an assistant. Here, you would learn how to etch into metal, heat up the ink, ink up the press, etc. Only after years of pain & anguish would you ever reach the prestigious role of "Printmaker," where you could actually make your own images.
The whole process (as hellish as it must have been), forces the fledgling designer to understand the medium within which they are operating. Times have changed, but I think the shortcuts that the computer presents us can support a lack of discipline in the production process.

June 28, 2006