notarypublic
New Member
I'm currently redesigning a website for an academic research group based out of a university where I live. The previous designer had a 2-year degree (though I won't knock that, I'm getting the same degree, myself). I am appalled at the shortcuts he used to make the site "look good enough." From the front end, it looks put together well enough, has cross browser compatibility, and has all the looks of being put together by someone who knew what they were doing.
I consider it bad form to tell my employers that their previous designer had taken them for a ride, but it did come up - they asked why I was remaking a template that mirrored the current style of their site, when I'm supposed to be redesigning it. The truth is, I can't edit the current site, it's been too cobbled together to begin to sort out.
Upon hearing this, they conceded that they had a feeling that the design was shoddy, but were happy enough with the results - It looks "good enough." Which really got me thinking, today.
Are we, as designers, the only ones that fully appreciate good design? Is it trivial to agonize over a quirk that shifts a banner image over 1 pixel in an old browser? At one point do we decide that it's "good enough?"
The ethical question then is: if only designers can typically tell when a website is poorly put together (which for small scale websites, this happens a scary amount of time), what stops someone from making their niche market from being these small scale sites, charging for a site that can be put together "good enough" almost as quickly as a designer can type?
I personally exercise good design principles as best as I can - but my sights are set quite a bit higher than where I'm at, right now. For a site that receives lots of traffic, those "good enough" shortcuts quickly turn into gaping flaws as the content gets bigger and more unruly to manage.
Where do you draw the line?
I consider it bad form to tell my employers that their previous designer had taken them for a ride, but it did come up - they asked why I was remaking a template that mirrored the current style of their site, when I'm supposed to be redesigning it. The truth is, I can't edit the current site, it's been too cobbled together to begin to sort out.
Upon hearing this, they conceded that they had a feeling that the design was shoddy, but were happy enough with the results - It looks "good enough." Which really got me thinking, today.
Are we, as designers, the only ones that fully appreciate good design? Is it trivial to agonize over a quirk that shifts a banner image over 1 pixel in an old browser? At one point do we decide that it's "good enough?"
The ethical question then is: if only designers can typically tell when a website is poorly put together (which for small scale websites, this happens a scary amount of time), what stops someone from making their niche market from being these small scale sites, charging for a site that can be put together "good enough" almost as quickly as a designer can type?
I personally exercise good design principles as best as I can - but my sights are set quite a bit higher than where I'm at, right now. For a site that receives lots of traffic, those "good enough" shortcuts quickly turn into gaping flaws as the content gets bigger and more unruly to manage.
Where do you draw the line?
In the meantime they are paying me to research and learn principles of design that I'm not getting just through school. They get a better final product, and I have extreme freedom to experiment and develop my skills.