[Sigia-l] Re: Design(ers) [was: is bad design a choice?]

[Dave Heller]

Jared this assertion is totally not true:
> The point I'm tryin' to make is we seem to have this here belief that "good
> design" be helpin' and "bad design" be hurtin'. But we can't really define
> what makes "good" or "bad" design, right? (Other than the ol' standard
> I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it approach.)

While there is some gray, that gray does exist in a realm where there
is well understood black and white as well.

The problem is that in the web world, unlike print and industrial
design, these standards have been ignored b/c th web world started out
from amateurs and still exists mainly around people who have no formal
design training.

Want me to deconstruct for you all the things wrong w/ a visual design
of a site and state why it is wrong for real reasons of type, color,
line, shape, and form theory? Sure! let's go to town.

Now! that being said, your first point is actually more important:
> Would it double their revenues? Up it by 50%? 10%? 1%? Would a redesign
> have any positive effect at all? (After all, this is the site where
> changing the page background from puke yellow to neutral white pissed off a
> substantial number of existing customers and sent them packing to the
> competitors.)

Ah!!!! How much indeed? First off as I've stated in this thread eBay
is a really bad example. They sit on their laurels due to a HUGE
monopoly. Actually, there isn't a competitor out there worth their
salt. MAYBE Yahoo Auctions could do something, but it would cost them
HUGE. So trying to say how much more you can increase eBay's revenue's
is a tad difficult.

What I can tell you is that there are people who aren't using eBay,
and I do think that applying principles of visual and interaction
design and Shit! while we are on this list Information Architecture
will allow for eBay to better sit in the mindshare of all those people
who aren't using it.

Since eBay already has technological scale issues, I'm not so sure it
makes sense for them to grow with new customers as much as it does for
them to grow their existing base. THAT! is a different problem handled
in a different method.

But let's look at what is going on w/ the OS race. MacOS barely takes
a bite out of MS, and w/ 85%+ of total desktop around the world they
STILL put just as much into the GUI design as they do into the backend
design (proportional to amount of code). Reserch is huge, and MS is
iterating on every major release trying to keep up and MacOS on each
major release is trying (and succeeding) to stay ahead.

It's a total picture and since you are  the founder of the "it
depends" slogan, I think we can all agree. ;)

-- dave

-- dave

On 10/17/05, Jared M. Spool <jspool at uie.com> wrote:
> At 01:45 PM 10/17/2005, Todd Warfel wrote about eBay:
> >Just imagine how much better it would work with a little better "design."
>
> I'd actually like to be doing some of this darned imaginin'.
>
> Would it double their revenues? Up it by 50%? 10%? 1%? Would a redesign
> have any positive effect at all? (After all, this is the site where
> changing the page background from puke yellow to neutral white pissed off a
> substantial number of existing customers and sent them packing to the
> competitors.)
>
> How much could we, as *designers* guarantee that this "little better
> 'design'" (as y'all put it) would help eBay's business objectives?
>
>
> And we can't really substantiate the claim that improving design will help
> the business in some sort of way. It feels like it should, but do we know
> for a fact that it does?
>
> It's the facts that I'm most interested in.
>
> So, before we be condemnin' eBay as "bad design", maybe we oughta be clear
> on what that actually means. Certainly, before we go gettin' all
> high-and-mighty about that good vs. bad design thingy.
>
> I'm just sayin' :)
>
> Jared
>
>
> Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
> 4 Lookout Lane, Unit 4d, Middleton, MA 01949
> 978 777-9123   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
> Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks
>
>
>


--
David Heller
E: dheller (at) gmail (dot) com
W: www (dot) synapticburn (dot) com