Save the Pixel and The Power of “New”
Web Design from Scratch recently released a snippet of the PDF eBook “Save the Pixel,” by Ben Hunt.
Couldn’t be a more appropriate and targeted vision statement for ProjectEric.com. It’s what I strive to produce in all my designs, whether I’m working with a team or individually:
“Keeping it simple is hard. One reason it’s hard is because we so often feel compelled to be doing something “more”, to be different in order to keep the visitor interested. That’s how cleverness creeps in. When you’re creating your web site this little voice can start telling you that it’s too boring, too much like the next site. You feel a desperate need to come up with something with a bit more jazz.”
Members of large design companies or institutions find this quite troubling. After all, they were hired specifically for the purpose of being creative. Creativity breeds new stuff. New stuff makes its way onto a site. Over time, your site starts to look like a Christmas tree, all lit up with various colors, placements, font types, mindless stock photos, you name it.
So, why have so many designers on staff? Why not have a few designers, tasking them to simply push conventions, standards, best practices, thus minimizing net new design?
If you buy into “less is more,” then your answer to the last two questions might be, “Darn tootin.”
But I look at it a different way. Certainly, design conventions breed simplicity. Consistency. Ease of use. I should know; I currently manage a style guide for more than 100 designers.
Don’t Knock It Until You Try It
I never knock “new.” New breeds fun, enlightenment, creativity, and most importantly, personal satisfaction. It’s how you apply “new” that’s important.
Consider a new button. Simple enough. Let’s say all of the buttons on your site are blue with white text, and the so-called new idea is a red button with white text that changes color as you hover. Is the idea really new? Certainly, the basic interaction pattern of a button isn’t. They’ve been in the web world for years, linking users to an action. But the introduction of a red button for your site is novel. Never been done before. You’re a blue guy. What’s with this hippie designer thinking red is better?
Indeed, the red button may not be the right solution. Does it stand out? Against all the other blue buttons on the page, certainly. But does it need to stand out; that’s the question. Why are you trying to communicate to your customer? What are you driving your customer to do? How might a red button impact all the other content on the page? How might a customer treat the meaning of red against blue, in their mind’s eye?
Too often marketers equate “new” with “increased click-through rates” or “higher conversion rates.” While this is sometimes true, it might sacrifice other important user experience principles: consistency, brand recognition, and organization, to name a few.
Arguments for Both Sides
So it’s painfully clear: “new” is a powerful word. It means change, opportunity, but potentially degradation as “Save the Pixel” explains. New ideas are always positive. It’s how they’re implemented that counts.
