ideas worth stealingDesigners are really bad architects
Web designers often say we’re like architects, but are we?
In an effort to articulate what we do for a living, we describe how we “blueprint” our designs, and how our efforts shape the plans for entire projects. When the listener’s eyes go glassy, we say we’re like architects. It sounds sexy.
Problem is, most of the designers using this metaphor seem to equate themselves with great architects. But at best, interaction design is like really bad architecture.
We don’t create spaces that last a hundred years. If we’re lucky, we have a few months before some aspect of them is functionally overhauled, given a new look, or flat-out removed. Our work is in constant flux. Imagine architecture that only lasted a few months before requiring new work.
And our sites become ugly as time passes. Design styles go out of style, and we laugh over the ugly and amateur crap we used to take so much pride in. This makes us like architects that design temporarily fashionable buildings—the ones you see now that look like they were built in the 1970’s.
Sure, some ideas become classics, like the pagination widget used at the bottom of every Google results page, but these things are only classic in “internet time”. Brick-and-mortar classics can persist through hundreds or thousands of years.
In truth, web designers are usually far more like fashion designers. We use lines and snaps and buttons and texture. We (often) focus our designs on specific personality types. We design things that last a single season. We design for perfect people (who do exactly what we think they’ll do).
If we change this—if we start designing things that are strong and beautiful and have lasting power—perhaps, eventually, people will start equating us with architects instead of the other way around.
Doing this is no small task, of course, but it’s the task we’ve dedicated ourselves to. And we owe it to ourselves and our users to start doing a better job.
Posted by Robert on May 29th, 2008
12 comments
Posted on May 29th, 2008
“Web designers often say we’re like architects, but are we?”
Wow. Do Web designers appreciate the amount of engineering and physics an architect has to know? How much mathematics, physics, structural systems, and building & materials construction must be studied? Making things look nice is only a part of it.
Software developers may be like architects; there’s a similar required mix of creativity, imagination, art, and hard science. I don’t see anything at all like that for Web designers.
“Making things look nice is only a part of it.”
Ouch! I assure you, there’s a lot more to professional web and application design than “making things look nice”. I hope you’re not undervaluing designers at the same time you’re disputing their self-overvaluation.
Have you read Designing the Obvious? Should give you a good idea.
@ James,
I really don’t see why a Web designer doesn’t need a mix of creativity, imagination, art, and hard science.
For one thing I would say to make something look nice already requires creativity, imagination and art. Then to make it usable requires creativity, imagination and hard science.
Then to combine those two requires those three again.
I would agree that Web design is lacking art and many Web sites lack creativity, imagination, art and hard science.
But then again many buildings are very ugly and boring as well.
Its just an easy methaphor for designers to use to help convey a message to someone who isn’t too savvy when it comes to understand what goes into building a website. Sure, there are similarities on a superficial level, but to directly compare architects and a web designer is sort of ridiculous.
I always thought the term “architecture” was used to describe the *structure* of a website or application. Designers create and define that structure, in a similar way that architects create and define the structure of a building. In my opinion, the term refers more to the process rather than the product, while you are comparing the products in your article.
Of course web sites are not like buildings and they’re not meant to be. Why would you *want* a design to remain the same for centuries?
A building takes years to create and is very difficult to rebuild. That is a very big constraint that architects work with and that designers don’t need to work with.
As designers, we can constantly improve our designs and we can do it fast since it’s so easy to fix any mistakes we might make along the way. I agree that this might encourage laziness in some, but for good designers, a “strong and beautiful” design is always the goal. We just have the luxury of making it stronger and more beautiful.
That is a fantastic point, Natasha. In fact, I love that the web is so flexible and able to be updated on a dime—the ability to iterate is one of the best things about the web. It’s as though designers want to write this off in the interest of building credibility.
I suppose you’ve got a point there. But what if we just consider that things are changing at a faster rate on the web. In high value areas the architecture changes quicker (like cities) than in areas that aren’t as valuable.
btw, when I click on an input field in this form it’s jumping to the previous field. Not sure what’s going on.
Well, that is mighty strange form behavior—thanks for pointing it out. Perhaps I need the latest WP upgrade. Adding it to my to-do list now!
I think this is very accurate! Unfortunately/Fortunately there are multiple stigmas towards the fashion design practice.
The lack of depth and the closenesses of its processes unfortunately is not a good pattern to compare the IA-ID practice. As much as I admire fashion processes and see a parallel between its cycles and technology a client will just get scared from such a comparison. At the end of the day must ID work is covered by the great umbrella of advertising and the association with Architecture into something functional and tangible will get the point across to what we do. Plus the pattern recognition most people experience when exposed to this idea seems to be “oh architect… Frank Ghery! The Guggenheims are so cool and they serve a great purpose…”.
At the end of the day both practices are looking to create those same ethereals a-ha moments… fashion too…
Good note! =)
You should read Stewart Brand’s ‘How Buildings Learn’ - he describes the ‘high road’ architecture and importantly the ‘low road’. The low road is great architecture, but it’s just designed to be hacked and repurposed.
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