“Undesign” is Bullshit

This week there was a pretty big attack on the discipline of digital design. A number of notable publications (The Atlantic, Wired, Technology Review, Advertising Age) all published, republished or promoted this article called The Undesigned Web by Dylan Tweney.

I call bullshit.

Design in the digital landscape is more important now than it ever has been, but I will come back to that in a minute.

In his principle argument he states…

[…] In the 21st century, Internet standards have successfully separated design and content. The two live more interdependent lives, sometimes tightly tied and sometimes completely separated from one another.

What he is referring to the now commonplace practice of “standards-based” design and development using external stylesheets to control presentation and not incorporate it into the markup. A point he goes into some detail about later on.

He then asserts that “the message is now free from the medium” by using these standards.

It’s that separability of design and text that has led to the third wave of the web, in which readers (or what some would call end-users) are in control of how the content they are reading looks. And, as it turns out, many of those readers like their designs to be as minimal as possible.

While separating presentation from markup has its advantages, it is a colossal stretch to conflate standards-based design with trends in web design aesthetic, peoples reading preferences, or the value of design within the mobile application landscape. None of these things are as closely related as he suggests and he provides no such data or research to state otherwise.

Call this wave The Undesigned Web.

No I don’t think I will, we already call it Content. I think that sounds much better, don’t you?

Honestly to imply that some sort of trend is happening without citing any evidence is irresponsible journalism. But perhaps I’m being too hard on Mr. Tweney. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he meant to start a discussion around a number of present day trends, rather than allow an editor to make an asinine claim on his behalf such as “Design Is Dead. Long Live Design!”

So rather than critique, let me offer some suggestions on some talking topics that he alluded to, but could have been far more constructive and probably a bit more interesting to read:

• Does design (as we understand it) matter in this landscape of multi-context experiences and mobile devices? Maybe tell a personal story of how you noticed this yourself, and how you did some informal research with others. Set the context for the problem rather than state it as fact or imply it as a non-exisitant trend.

• Are mobile devices forcing designers or developers to think of experiences differently. Creating bridges across multiple screens and interfaces. Or how are designers treating traditional digital design differently. Focusing on more interactive tactile experiences rather than a consumption driven experience that dominates the web.

• How do tools like Instapaper, Readability, Google Reader, Safari Reader, etc. help people focus on content? Who uses these tools and how are they helpful? Avoid making assertions like “One of the most popular iPad apps is Instapaper” which isn’t 100% accurate. Are current web design trends a distraction to readers forcing them to use alternate experiences to help them focus? Or is there something else as play, like the desire to better scan read, which we know most Web readers do since there is countless research stating this as fact.

• How does the readers context (be it location, mental, modal, trust, etc.) play into current design trends? Are Web users being inundated with content and have less time to read online as research firms like Nielson suggest? Or do they time or place shift content to alternate contexts? For example marking content to “Read Later” on a bus, train or plane with network access is infrequent or unavailable.

• Are there larger problems than just current design trends? For example, Content Management Systems traditionally do a horrible job at adapting content for multiple contexts, and much of the web as we know it is trapped within these behemoths. Is content is still trapped in the medium, not design or markup, but the databases. Who is addressing that problem? How do APIs help solve the problem in native applications? Is this a trend?

• How does the success of iPad, iPhone or any mobile device for that matter work to reinforce your argument that a trend is occurring in design?

• Are mobile devices changing peoples perceptions of design or vice versa? Are mobile devices changing peoples perceptions of content?

Any of these points would have made for a very compelling article. I understand if Mr. Tweney was attempting to create an overview to those unfamiliar with the intricacies of digital design, but he should have at least talked to a few notable designers working in today’s field before making any representations for the rest of us.

As I mentioned before design is more important now that ever before. The role of the digital designer and technologists of today is to use technology to solve problems, change behavior, evoke action, create a vision for how these gadgets will improve our lives, all of which is increasingly overlapping with the real world.

So I guess the largest problem I have with Mr. Tweney’s article is he failed to do any of those things.