Welcome to Gaia! ::

First day of May, and a Monday?! There is NO better day to start this all off.

Here's the general idea. I have numerous design feeds I subscribe to, and I run into articles and stuff that I think "I'd like to share this with the guild" or "it would be fun to have a discussion about this". So started the idea for a daily, or semi-daily as this is more likely to be, design digest.

Every other day or so I'll post a link or a few, with maybe some commentary, and then everyone should just go wild commenting and discussing about it!!

I hope this is an enjoyable feature. Let me know of any suggestions or ideas you have regarding it.

This is perhaps a slight overlap with the Tutorials and Resources subforum, but that's not really a place for discussion as much as I'd like this to be.

On with the show!

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Monday, May 1st, 2006

When is Bad Design a Good Thing?

Here is an interesting article about the misconceptions about design and usability, and it contains a lot of other links if you're interested in reading more.

Bad Design is Good Design?

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Ooh interesting discussion!

I agree that a good design has to be able to communicate its message well - good design is not defined by how pretty it is.

That being said I'm not completely sure how much I like this new trend towards functionality over form in web design. Okay, so functionality is more important, and the look does work for some sites... but I would hate to see 'pretty' sites completely die out.

The function-over-form sites I'm talking about are sites like Google, Flickr, del.icio.us

... all sites that I love and use often, and I'm not sure if their function and content would have as much as an impact with a more flashy design, but they seem to be cropping up more and more lately.

Oh and the Google logo is pretty horrible xp I'd say its success is more of a testament to its developers than the brilliance of its (visual) design.

well i have to agree that they got the brand through delivering services and not marketing but i have to make a point they changed the logo - and it looks much better now - before there were some groosome eyes in those oo's ^^

Ooh I remember that now! Definitely an improvement over that xp

I like that redux Yoyo, I can see how it would improve useability.