Re:NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic devel...
by gdubs on Monday June 08, 2020 @01:05PM
(#23458387)
We're mostly talking about the same thing. Simply put, I'm primarily talking about the distinction between choosing something because it looks cool – and sometimes what looks cool is a very important constraint – vs having intention in one's design choices. Like you point out, things like prominence, progressive disclosure, etc. Those aren't superficial choices; they actually serve a purpose, and are a way to fit within a set of constraints.
For most, yes, it will end up represented in 'how it looks', but I'm underlining the importance of 'how it got there'.
(Aside: worth just highlighting for everyone that not everyone is sighted, that accessibility matters, and that not every design choice is visual.)
That's a dangerous thing to say, I think. Because the way it looks is the way it works.
A huge part of design is managing the prominence (and presence/absence) of various elements, so people understand what something does, and find it as effortless as possible to find and take the actions they want.
Prominence is managed by relative size, weight, hue, brightness, saturation, shadow, whitespace, opacity, ornamentation, vertical ordering, horizontal ordering, and so on.
All of those things are how it "looks".
Presence/absence is managed by hierarchy, expand, hover, etc.
All of those are also how it looks, by what's removed or shown.
I think I agree with where you're coming from, especially in your last paragraph. I'm just worried that your first sentence is easily misinterpretable as "as long as all the information is on the webpage, fonts/colors/spacing are mostly irrelevant".