[thelist] Re: is web design dead?

[martin burns]

Go into a supermarket. Pretty much any mainstream supermarket in pretty much any country will do.

Now, see if you recognise any of these design paradigms:
*) Fruit and veg are just inside the door. They have lots of mirrors and spotlights around. There's a weigh machine in the area
*) You enter on the right hand side and tend to circle anti-clockwise
*) There are special deals on the row ends
*) The essential items are on narrower aisles, but to get to them, you really need to get through less essential items. You also need to get through the supermarket's own branded stuff to get at the well-known brands.
*) Well known and the store's own brands have acres of shelf space
*) Specialist shops like delicatessen/fresh bread are at the back
*) Stuff you buy together are usually stocked together (including surprisingly, nappies and beer - it's the Homer shopping basket)
*) There are as many checkouts as the long edge of the store can possibly accommodate
*) The personal hygiene products also have spotlights and mirrors, and is probably the only area with a dominant blue colour
*) There are a few low-cost conveniance products at the checkout (batteries, camera film, magazines, chocolate)

You might say that designers weren't involved, or were prevented from being 'cool'. And you'd be right. The purpose of a supermarket is generally not to be cutting-edge cool, it's to sell the maximum product in the minimum space in the minimum time.

Designers *are* included in the process (although less in the design of individual stores as the overall generic plan for all of a company's outlets), but their role is to make the store design fulfil the goals of max profit, min space, min time. And the conventions of store design are based on a very, very large amount of time and money spent in consumer research & behavioural studies.

Adding that value is what earns the reasonably large amounts of cash clients pay.

Cheers
Martin