Design is most effective when executed with knowledge of psychology. Knowing how people react to visual stimuli allows the crafting of an effective design, with out psychology you are guessing. Psychology itself is a vastly fluctuating and massive subject, but that doesn’t mean you need a PhD to use it in your design. There are […]
Most discussions of speed and websites focus on response time, download footprint and rendering performance. While all aforementioned elements are important, there is another aspect of site performance to be aware of— the speed of the human mind. It’s safe to say the human brain processes information faster than any computer, browser and of the internet, so it […]
Over the past fifteen plus years of designing websites for other people, I have received countless requests to remove elements from a design because they are “redundant.” The perception is that if something is included on the page once, especially in an obvious fashion, there’s no reason to repeat it elsewhere. Further baffling, it’s my […]
Few websites are designed with bad intentions. If the designer or stakeholders care about the project you can be sure every element on the page has been analyzed, reviewed and tweaked. This sounds obvious, but it should be disconcerting. Let me explain further. If most websites have had thought and care put into them, why are […]
With design, there is no universal “best approach” that will apply to all situations. Those using the site, how they got there, their goals and the objectives of the site owners will all influence the most effective design approach. The best advice I can give is to empathize with the users, understand that they know […]
Today, the vast majority of websites are still designed and built by talented generalists, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just that some of the larger and more complex sites do require composite teams of specialists with a singular focus. Experts in information categorisation, human computer interaction or interface design. They also need […]