[thelist] Re: is web design dead?

[Erika Meyer]

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

What Nielson's Alertbox doesn't recognize is that even within the 
limits he draws (whether or not I fully agree) there is room for 
design.

Nielson is 100% usability.  Which is why visiting his site is like 
walking into a big white room full of folding chairs with a grey 
tiled linoleum floor and a stage in front, empty, but for the 
microphone.  Something will happen there, and you go for that.  But 
the experience leaves something to be desired.  He serves geek coffee 
in styrofoam cups with powdered non-dairy cream and sugar.  The 
coffee machine is easy to locate against the stark white walls of the 
alertbox.  You pour yourself a cup, you listen... and then you get 
the hell out of there and visit an interesting web site... or go read 
evolt posts.

Well, maybe not YOU, but that is MY alertbox user experience.

Keep making your links underlined and blue, folks.  I'll be over at A 
List Apart and such sites where I find my way about just fine.

As for the rest, I agree with a lot, but Nielson doesn't recognize 
that even within the little blue underliney link & shopping-cart icon 
world there is still a lot of room for individuality & design.  He 
writes about simplicity, but in fact most commercial sites--upon 
which we are supposed to model our designs are terribly complex as 
well as ugly.

ah, forget it anyway.

I was writing about the supermarket... yes, to illustrate my point 
that within a limited system are great possibilities.... the 
supermarket.  One of the most successful supermarkets locally is a 
fairly small one called "Wildberries Marketplace." 
http://www.wildberries.com/ (their website sucks, but you can get a 
glance at the store.)

When you walk in the door, giant paper-mache fruit & berries hang 
from the ceiling.  Kids love it.  They feature a display from local 
non-profits (this month, the Natural History Museum) by the front 
door.  They feature a pharmaceutical/cosmetics area near the front 
which has a huge selection of homeopathic medicines.  I've been known 
to stop in for that alone.  They have both organically grown and 
commercial fruits and vegetables in the normal fruit & vegetable 
area, they have fresh-baked & commercial bread, a place to get hot 
coffee & scones, a deli, and a juice bar where you can get smoothies 
and shots of wheatgrass whatever the hell that is.

And they have most of the general prepackaged/canned/frozen foods 
you'd find at any supermarket, with a bit more emphasis on locally 
produced on locally produced and/or organic products.

Same concept as (ugh) Safeway or take your pick of any godawful 
flourescent supermarket hell. I HATE those places, their usability 
tests be damned.

Wildberries has a much more pleasant, different look and feel, great 
variety, great quality, smaller, shorter lines, slightly more 
expensive, and vastly more interesting--and to me, more useful.

And a booming success.

Human beings still have hearts and we still have taste and
design ain't dead and won't die until we turn into machines.

Erika





erika at seastorm.com
http://www.seastorm.com