I mean really ugly. Yes, we see beautiful websites, subscribe to CSS galleries to spy on competition or to find inspiration, link to blogs with unique designs, craft themes for public releases, but this is only the illusion we’ve chosen to live in. The sad fact: users will never see a website the way we do.
By seeing I don’t mean sharing a point of view or knowing the design’s subtle rules or latest trends, but physically having access to an image.
We see the web through our big shiny monitors; they support at least the true color displaying mode, or they’re finely calibrated; the colors’ temperatures are always exact, determined in a daylight environments (designers are like paysagist painters, composing by night and painting in the morning, under the touch of the rose fingers of the dawn).
Nevertheless, the users – the impersonation of the impersonal “to whom it may concern” that is the opening statement of any website design – will always treat the monitor settings like a virgin territory. They’ve often not even aware of the possibility of changing the defaults; they’ve paid for a product (which they’ve chosen for its brand or size) and willingly have faith in the manufacturer’s expertise. Sometimes the settings are altered by accident, but nobody seem to care (unless, of course, the image displayed isn’t too awkward). And this is how the web becomes an ugly place.
I remember having once designed a theme that made intensive use of grays, with subtle transitions and very closed colors. I liked it and even regretted I was going to give it away instead of using it on one of my blogs. But I happened to see it on my cousin’s computer, and the grays were so cool that they were turning blue. And then I saw it on a computer in a public library, and it looked unimaginably dull. And it was very frustrating. And I felt the job I had done was incomplete; it felt like I had given an unfinished painting, with lots of blank spots.
There’s always a struggle, deep down inside every designer, between the liberal and autocratic temptations. The endless success of debates such as fixed vs liquid layout or universal browser support vs “IE6 must die” states for this essential tension.
A good design, we are told, will leave the power to the people while being seen just like it was seen by its creator (just take a look at your snipets, hacks and fixes collection). Analogically,a good painting will be seen the same way by its painter and by a visually challenged person; and painters should keep in mind that there are daltonian people and paint consequently.
This is a bad analogy, though, for paintings must be pretty, while website designs must be pretty and usable. Only if we knew what usable would stand for.
PS This is a rather bitter post. I’ll might just get back to my illusion.
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