Jeffrey Veen

Perhaps the problem is that too many of the toolmakers think/fear/know/believe without a doubt/guess that you have to have a pretty design to sell/get buy-in on a new tool.

I loved the way that Noah Grey developed Greymatter in that sense--the default template that he distributed in GM was FUGLY. His response was always close to, "I want you to come up with your own design." It kept GM from having a ton of sites based around people too lazy/ignorant/whatever to come up with a new design.

I'm biased towards WordPress as a user of it, but I appreciate that their code puts out nice, happy, valid XHTML-marked-up text. You may then dress that text as you choose. I would hope that more toolmakers would do this in the long-run--build stuff that outputs happy, valid markup and let people's creativity go wild on how they use it. A few WOW-inducing layouts built on top of your markup will have people check your codebase out.

I feel a slight tendency in the web community towards more and more in-depth articles.

For example french-speaking Cybercodeur.net draws long discussions about the semanticality of elements, aceessibility (not code, more general thinking really), and look at ALA's forums.

Lately I feel that people have begun shifting from 'I want tips', to 'Hey, what if we thought a bit longer about this or that aspect of the web?' - said aspects being either its social implications, the underlying code changes (true, the tool and not the trade is the focus here), marketing, disabled people and their acceptance in life (which is often spinning off discussions about accessibility), suppleness in design, etc.

All in all the web has never been richer with discussions about more-than-just-tools.

(yeah, I should post this note to whitespace and 37signals also, but if only I had the time, eh? ;))

One of the ongoing issues I've seen is the need for people to have a design portfolio that will get them new jobs and to have sites that are clear and simple.

The sites that are clear and easy to use look entirely too 'plain' for new clients to believe that you have the chops to give them the 'best' design.

Needing to eat, I can't spend my time designing sites purely for the sake of a portfolio, and if I could, I believe it would be disingenuous to present a portfolio that has nothing in common with my actual work.

How do we balance this?

It's all going to come down to second nature, really. Eventually, when browsers evolve to the point where standards are well supported, CSS and discussions of it will be less important and standards will be second nature to the designer/coder. And while CSS/XHTML is old news in the big scheme of things, to guys like me, its new territory and exciting to explore.

I tend to talk about those things that are exciting to me. Yeah, I'm behind the curve, but I'm workin' at it, and some folks will have to bear with people like me.

User experience is something we're just going to have to get excited about. It needs to be a priority, and the only way to make it a priority is to put the bug in designers' ears, if you know what I mean. Down the road, both standards and UI will be second nature to designers, hopefully.

I guess that's evolution... one step at a time. Some people evolve more quickly than others. But talking about it like this is one of the best ways of getting people excited.

i was going to point to something i wrote about the need to improve CMS tool usability and how it directly influences the end user but when i dug it up, i realized it was from 2001. this is sad. not much has changed in the field, i guess.

Jason makes a great point, but there's so many factors involved that just focusing on humans isn't enough of a solution. There are problems within this problem that probably require different solutions. For example:

* Technology (e.g. CSS) positioned as a driver instead of an enabler. You'd have to talk to techies in their language to get your point across.

* Business feeling that more features and more tools will protect them in any situation. You'd have to talk to business people in their language to convince them. And even then it's still way too general of an approach.

In the end I think we need to do a whole lot more thinking, writing, and talking for and with people *outside* the UX field. Perhaps now we know enough about our own field to do that. Still, it's not as fun, and that's largely why it doesn't get done.

I've usually thought that design was about all the stuff you left out v. what to add.

There will always be issues around this craft and there will always be designers to solve them (and others who contribute to the creative process).

If something isn't highly stylized, then some feel it's not adequately "designed". People get so focused on the tools, that the ideas and people behind them take a secondary role. I can't tell you how many times someone asks me if so and so can help with a project and say, "they know Illustrator or__________ (fill in the blank), like that is the secret to do the work. I can get all the tools I need to build a house, but it would probably leak, lean to the left and fall over after the first snow. Web design and development have the same issues. For better and worse, the tools are easily accessible, but thinking and finding the right solutions are not.

I would like to add one more thought behind your statement "...except for the bit about this being something new". You're absolutely correct. And I tend to think the blogging culture and its popularity among the web designers and developers is partly to blame for this misconception. When every designers and developers were sharing their know-how's on tools and techniques in the past, there weren't nearly as much inter-linking between various resources. What we are doing now to learn about the latest CSS or browser hacks is no different from the active knowledge sharing that went on when all of us were spending time learning how to code frames or javascript image roll-overs. But now, many of us read from the same blogs and feeds. And more importantly, we all write about the same issues regurgitated in different fashion. It's become a loop that feeds itself. While this practice has its benefits, it does tend to create a general perception that that's all we're focused on.

I can concur on peoples desire for simple tricks and tips and haves seen it in the design courses I teach. Teaching conceptual skills (what I want to teach) vs. tips and tricks (what students want me to teach) is a constant battle and balancing act.

My fist couple terms teaching, at the end of a 16 week course, I would distribute a survey to the students to find out how to improve the class. The feedback always claimed I did not spend enough time teaching software tips. I quickly determined the surveys were useless (also determined that aspects of the user centered design process do not apply to teaching! Alas another subject.).

Similar to your idea that people believe complexity = power, the students confused knowlege of key commands or photoshop filters as power.

After 9 years of teaching, I still wonder if those conceptual abilities can be taught or if they are innate. hmmm, that all sounds more depressing than I expected.