Left Brain Right Brain

OK. I’m going to have to word this post very carefully. I want to get it upfront that this entry is in no way just a great big sulk about not getting listed on StyleGala or CSS Beauty/Vault or Unmatched Style. Seriously, its not. Stop sniggering.

There has to be a line of quality that differentiates what gets listed and what doesn’t. Thats as it should be – not every design can make it in. But lets get the awkward question out the way – do I think this design should be listed? The honest answer is that I’m ambivalent. It would be nice, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it if I don’t. So whats the point of this post?

I know that at least one of these sites has come calling just by checking my referrer stats. I further can see that I haven’t been listed (thats not to say I won’t be of course, I really don’t know if anyone’s even submitted the design or not, let alone had the other gallery sites come calling to have a look). So OK – as I said above, its nice to be listed but at the end of the day if I’m not then I’m not. I’m not gagging for a listing – my self confidence has grown enough since I stopped doing just Flash work that I’m not too worried what others think. But what would be great would be some kind of indication as to the factors that led me not to be listed.

Imagine how useful that would be? All designers are interested in pushing themselves and growing past their current boundaries right? What better way than to get some kind of feedback from the people who made the call as to their opinions as to why it didn’t make the cut? It wouldn’t necessarily have to be massively in-depth, just a sort of tickbox affair stating what the main issue(s) was/were and an indication of what needed to be worked on. A paragraph of text at most. StyleGala does this for successful designs – wouldn’t that effort be better placed offering constructive critiques to those that didn’t make it in?

Now I know the guys running these galleries are busy people but wouldn’t that be a great thing for them to do? I know I would really appreciate constructive criticism on a design from some of the best in the business.

There’s been an uptake in 3rd party apps interacting with websites in ways previously unthought of this year. Two of the biggest known are the Google Content Rewriter and now, Greasemonkey.

What both these things do is alter aspects of a website. The onus in each of these caes is slightly different. Google does it mostly, it seems, for Google whilst Greasemonkey does it for users. The end result is the same however – sites are altered.

This for me throws up lots of interesting questions about sites and the various aspects that can be ‘owned’ and who the various people are that ‘own’ these aspects.

At its most basic level a web page is comprised of three things: markup, design elements and content. Greasemonkey and Google can alter all three of these things. The question then is: should they be allowed to do so? Who ‘owns’ the site?

I take the view that all aspects of my site are owned by me but that by explicitly allowing others to access the content and the design then they have at least a part ownership in that aspect of the page(s). Once its downloaded to their browser then they should be able to alter is as they see fit to suit their needs. In this respect I have less of an issue with Greasemonkey than I do with Google. Greasemonkey is to help users. Google’s little tool is to help Google – they can make money from my content.

You’ve probably noted that in the above paragraph that I didn’t include markup in my list of what I personally find acceptable to alter. This is because I don’t find it acceptable for anything other than me to alter the code used on my site. Changing my code can have implications for how the site does/doesn’t work on the most basic of levels. For example, I use semantic code as I think its important. I use various bits of Javascript to do various things (the comments form spell checker for example) and whilst I can appreciate that users might want to have more control I don’t think that altering my code is acceptable.

At some point there has to be an element of trust. I don’t serve ads, I don’t track anyone with cookies or sessions (except in as much as I do for the comment form details). I don’t use hidden frames and I don’t think users have the right to alter the most basic building block of how I choose to serve content.

I serve content in two formats – markup and RSS. Those, to me, are your options as a user. I think a mutually respectful relationship where I trust you not to make unwanted changes to the functionality of my site and you trust me not to flood you with spam or other ads is important.

Dean Edwards recently wrote a script to disale Greasemonkey.

…GreaseMonkey broke my site. I didn’t realise what the problem was at first. I use a JavaScript syntax highlighter to make code on this site look slightly less boring. It uses some regular expressions and a little bit of DOM scripting. After installing GreaseMonkey I noticed that some of my code samples were completely broken in Firefox.

I entirely agree with Dean here. OK, he’s talking about design elements which I don’t have such an issue with but the fact remains that this Greasemonkey script is interfering in coded elements of the page Dean published. That to me is not acceptable. I find it as annoying as I do Google’s attempt to rewite my content – even if it is much more benign in intent.

There are also a few scripts here that apparently totally disable Greasemonkey. I don’t think anyone really wants that but I can sympathise with site owners wanting their sites to be presented as they intended them.

As a point of note, I installed the script to disable Google rewriting my content straight away. I’m still wavering as to whether or not to install a Greasemonkey killer. I’d be very interested in others opinions on this.

Like most of us in this line of work/hobby I stop by the four main CSS galleries every few days to see whats new and make the odd comment if I particularly like a design.

I’ve noticed a trend over the last few months on all these sites in a few of the commenters remarking that a showcased site isn’t using ‘cutting edge’ CSS techniques or that there’s nothing new to see aesthetically and without fail it always puzzles me who is making these comments and why – some of these commenters even say a design isn’t ‘worthy’ of the gallery its been submitted to.

What is the big deal about using cutting edge techniques? Lets not forget that all the designs showcased at these sites are in live production, often serving a commercial purpose. It strikes me as incredibly dangerous to use cutting edge techniques (CSS or otherwise) on clients live sites. The reason these techniques are cutting edge is that they are new, unproven and possibly unstable. The only place I personally would consider utilising cutting edge techniques is on a designated experimentation area. I can’t imagne paying customers being overjoyed to find designs failing due to unstable techniques coming apart in unforseen ways due to lack of testing. Its really very unfair to base judgement on a showcased design on its lack of cutting edge technique – by not using cutting edge technique the designer has proven themselves not only a good designer but also responsible.

And what about all those ‘seen it all before’ comments? What exactly are people unhappy with when they make these comments? If one site is a carbon copy of another then fair enough but if a site merely happens to use a similar information design then I don’t see the issue. One example of this is the amount of complaints that come in when a blog is posted: ‘it just looks like a blog’ is the recurring comment – well no shit, Sherlock – guess what? thats because it is a blog! Blogs are structured the way they are because over time thats how the user goals have shaped the design. At bottom all e-commece sites look pretty much the same too – not aesthetically, but in terms of flow. Why? Because this is how the design of an e-commerce has evolved with the needs of the site user to the fore as oppose to the needs of the site designer to showcase their skillset.

So, does this mean I think all designs should be the same – no way. We need cutting edge technique, we need innovation and we need people to push the boundries but we also need to realise that there is a time and a place to do these things. We also need to realise that a good design is much more than a cutting edge style sheet and lots of graphics.

What sort of site am I talking about? What sort of site is great looking but doesn’t use anything which might impact negatively on user experience – well, John’s recent redesign of Joshuaink is a perfect example. It looks fantastic but at heart, its a very simple, solid blog design. Its beauty is not only skin deep, it goes beyond into the semantics, usability and flow of information. Another is Garrett Dimon’s recent design. In terms of aesthetics its nowhere near the same as Joshuaink but look at the semantics and look at the information flow and its plain to see that what we have here is ‘just another blog’ but just like John’s redesign it has a beauty and style that can be appreciated for what it is – a great design, executed perfectly.

Lets not get caught up in a need to be cutting edge merely for the sake of being cutting edge. Instead lets appreciate good design for what it is. If it doesn’t float your boat then fine but don’t fault a good design merely because its not using cutting edge technique.