Usability vs Aesthetics

[amykhar]

Here's my question to you. I have been doing quite a bit of reading on designing web sites to make them more useable for even the most novice surfer. (Grace got me into Jakob Niesen).

However, a lot of what he advocates is simply UGLY. No graphics, the old blue links and purple links for unvisited and visited, etc. Blech.

Take this board, for example. On the one hand, we love the features - signatures, avatars, smilies, and message icons. However, these features that we love do slow down the pages, which makes them take longer to load. Luckily, the software lets individual users turn off some of the extras, and decrease file sizes.

When you design your own pages, what do you go for? Pure usability? Looks? Some combination of the two? What do you think web surfers want to see? Are they as stupid as Nielsen seems to think they are?

Amy

[quasar]

My answer is different if I look at pages for my personal use (my website) vs. pages for commercial use (use by the company I work for).

I always chose function over form. That doesn't mean I try to make things ugly, but I will chose the simple solution over the complex; chose a nice looking simple solution over an awe-inspiring complex one.

When designing for a company that is trying to sell a product using these pages, or using my pages on their website with their name on them, I understand the need to make them look a bit nicer and more professional than I might for my personal use. However, I try to bring some reason to the discussions and keep them as simple as possible while maintaining something approaching the look and feel that I was tasked with. I push back, but invariably these pages lean more toward the snazzy than would be my drothers.

The application pages of the web application I had been documenting took this to an extreme, and that causes all sorts of problems. They implemented look and feel with pixel precision, making assumptions about the way their pages would look in my browser. By doing so they made their application ugly and unusable in my browser. Which brings me to my last point...

(it will be unpopular but I will defend it with every breath in my body)

When you design a web page you are designing an interface. You essentially make a contract with the browser that they will display heading text and tables and forms and body text with specific elements you define. It is up to the browser to determine how to implement your instructions. Let me say that again:

When you write a web page you do not control what its content looks like.

You control that the title will be displayed as titles get displayed in the user's browser, but that could be in chartreuse 19pt Bookman font or it could be in blue 8pt font. You do not have control over this, and much of the mess that the web has become is because people continually fail to grasp this concept, or fail to understand its implications.

Speaking as someone who choses to not use the default browser settings I can tell you that many many people who try to make beautiful web pages end up makings pages with overlapping text columns or pages where text floats on top of a picture with text that is cut off because it doesn't fit in the narrow band that web page designer gave for that text.

I apologize for the sermon, but as someone who remembers the days of text only, and someone who remembers the days when everyone futzed with browser settings, I am really sensitive to the mess that comes from trying to make everything prettier.

Aethetics are fine to consider as long as you remember:

1) they are subjective
2) not everyone uses default browser settings

but usability must come first.

Janice

[sylvanb]

I am a total novice at this, but my husband supports a (rather primitive) web store, and I suppport him and the business, and I have gotten involved in the remake of the website.

Quasar's comments are going right into my project file. I concur with the philosophy, and I have a question:

Does aiming for simplicity tend to minimize the browser issue? That seems obvious, but I am learning not to make assumptions.

Comments?

(By simplicity, I mean things like uncluttered pages and minimal bells and whistles).

[quasar]

Originally posted by sylvanb
Does aiming for simplicity tend to minimize the browser issue? That seems obvious, but I am learning not to make assumptions.

Generally yes. Simple designs with straightforward HTML will generally work well in any browser with any browser settings.

Janice

[evmori]

I author 2 web sites and both have a different audience. I have always felt that a web site should be easy to look at & easy to navigate. I read somewhere once that just because you can make things spin, blink, etc. doesn't mean you have to. Too many "special effects" detracts from the purpose of the site, unless that is the purpose. I agree that function should take presidence over form.

[lambchops]

I actually have that Nielsen book sitting on my desk. Why? It's not that I agree with him. He seems like a dinosaur in all honesty, it's just that he has some interesting ideas at times (and I had to buy it for a class). Anyway, I think good design has to combine the two. I agree that at times Flash is overdone, but in other instances it's totally warranted (for an ad firm, art house, portfolio, etc...) Nielsen's ideas are interesting, but you definitely shouldn't take them to heart. Just keep them in mind when you are trying to design a good site.