Design Dos and Don'ts

The readings and instructor blog both did a fairly good job of pointing out the basic things to keep in mind while designing a document, such as alignment, repetition, proximity, and contrast. Although I think it could have gone into a little more depth as to what makes a good design. Saying things like alignment and spacing are important. And its true that if they are off, it will make for a poor design and many people will notice that something is "off" or "wrong" with the document. However, even though it is very easy to tell when something is a poor design, it is often very difficult, at least for me, to tell what will make a good design.

I also liked the mention in the instructor blog of a good design being invisible. Very few people will comment or even notice when you have a very well designed document. However if it has a poor design, that is probably the first thing your audience will notice and having a poor design will most likely hurt your credibility as an author and hinder whatever point you are trying to get across with that piece of work.

When I saw the mention of the new tropicana logo, it reminded me of a critic from a designers point of view, that I had found online a few weeks ago. It can be found here at tropicana logo review. On the page the author talks about were they went wrong with the logo and brings up the some of the aspects of our readings from this week.

Also, another website I look at often is the drudge report, it has a very simple, but highly effective design. It is very easy to tell just at a glance what stories the author feels ,are the most important, and the design of the page leads your eyes naturally from one story to another, while the grouping makes it easy to tell which stories are related to one another.

Drudge Report design

jtirrell's picture

The Drudge Report comes up frequently in discussions of web design, because there are those who contend that it is well designed, and there are those who claim that is poorly designed. (Look at this post on Signal vs. Noise and a few of its over 500 comments, for example.) Some people might believe that this demonstrates that design is all relative, and that there aren't any real principles involved. This perspective is thoroughly incorrect. What this demonstrates, as we have been discussing throughout the semester, is that "good" and "bad" are completely situated concepts. The Drudge Report works well with some audiences and poorly with others, exactly like everything else that has ever been or will ever be created. This doesn't mean that we can't critique the effectiveness of a design (far from it). What it means is that all determinations of success or failure are contingent upon a particular context. There almost certainly isn't such a thing as an objectively good design, just as there is no objectively effective resume or an objective A paper.

The Drudge Report is useful for our purposes, because it is not simply a question of knowledge or experience that differentiates the audiences in this case. This is clearly a scenario where we can see that different audience groups have different needs, expectations, and values, and this leads to different experiences of the same text.

Drudge

Lpetrovi's picture

I took a look at the drudge report website that you have linked in your reading response. This is actually the first time I have visited or even heard of this site. I found the site confusing, too general looking, and also that it did not flow at all. For example, when I clicked on the link, one of the stories posted was about unrest in the Ukraine and cash withdraw not being available, but right under it was a picture of Mrs. Obama dancing with what looked like a group of chefs. I was very confused until I looked down a little further and discovered that the story about that picture was 3 lines farther down than the Ukraine story. This does not flow together well at all.

First timers R8

secolema's picture

I'm also a first timer to the drudge report. After going to the site, I initially had the same feeling as Lpetrovi about the design. It just seems like there are about a billion different ways that you could better section off the different stories and arrange the website itself. However, after thinking about it a little I think this type of design idea can work well occasionally. I think of it as the sites personality. If they changed and had easy working sidebars on every page to navigate anywhere in an instant then they just wouldn't be themselves anymore. It sets them apart from the crowd very well. Although this seems to work for them I’m not sure I could think of an instance where this would work well with our instructions. I believe for our situation it will be more important to properly section off different steps in a flowing manner.

Shane

I totally agree that the

JFlitt's picture

I totally agree that the Drudge Report site is confusing, I don’t really like the design at all and it doesn’t seem to have any order to it really. It seems this design takes some time to get used to, thus in my opinion that isn’t a good design if the users can’t easily utilize it. As grfnpt mentioned above and as it was mentioned in the instructors blog a good design will probably not get noticed or mentioned, but it will certainly add to the overall success of any document. Our designs will play a very crucial role in the approval or disapproval of these instructions.

Thanks

JFlitt.

I Actually Like Drudge Report

Ben's picture

I first encountered Drudge Report about four years ago. Initially, I felt the same as you, that the site was confusing and did not seem to have much of a flow to it. I didn't go back to the site for a couple more years. I can't remember exactly when it started, but my stance on this site has changed. I now visit this site at least once a day. I find that its simple format allows me to quickly check to see if there is news that interests me. It definitely is very unique is contrast to almost every other mainstream website. In place of flashy graphics and interfaces, they have stuck with simplicity.

Large Mess

Chris's picture

This is the first time I’d ever seen the Drudge Report webs site. Personally I don’t like it. I’d much rather look through a well thought out and designed layout. Sure I can see how some may like it but to me it just looks like a mess that I don’t even begin to want to read through. I tried to scan the page but I just gave up and closed the site. If it leaves me with any remembrances it will probably not be good ones. I will probably think about how I’m never going to visit the page again.

-Chris

Is my design good?

nmhess's picture

I agree that it can be very difficult to spot a good design, but that most people have little trouble spotting a bad one. I think this, as you mentioned, goes along the whole lines of design being "invisible", in that people really won't notice it too much, unless of course it sucks. There have been many corporate companies that have switched over logos in recent years, such as Burger King or Pepsi Co, with little notice from the public, but the effects are staggering when an obvious failure surfaces, such as with Tropicana. Even though most people probably can't express precisely what is "wrong" with a bad design, they will still nearly immediately "feel" withdrawn and isolated from it. I think it was crucial to read these chapters and blog posts to really gain an understanding of what efforts can be made to avoid such situations.

Headline overload

ajwaters's picture

I’m going to side with the “bad design” group regarding the drudgereport. I’ve never been to that site, and I was very confused at first as to what I was looking at. The ad at the top of the page was so big that I didn’t even see any text until I scrolled down, only to find an overload of links and columns that all look the same. There is hardly any differentiation or contrast between different stories or even different headings. There’s no intuitive flow of information here, my eyes don’t know where to look or what to look for. I personally don’t think drudgereport.com utilizes the good design methods that were discussed in the readings.