I don’t exactly remember when, but sometime during my Junior year of college there were two words that started to irk me when applied to a piece of graphic design.
“That’s cool.”
I realize it’s just meant as a compliment, but graphic design does not exist just to look “cool.” If that’s all someone can say about something I’ve designed, I’ve failed. Design exists for a higher purpose than looking “cool.” However, despite my best attempts to avoid the phrase, I found myself uttering it yesterday.
The OJ was running low (and a tad past the expiration date), so I picked some up on a grocery run. Having already glanced at this article on The Dieline I was aware of the recently refreshed Tropicana packaging. After picking up my usual brand of OJ I put it back and snatched the Tropicana while saying the blasphemous words in my mind. In my opinion the new packaging aesthetic looks great, however, it fails in function when compared to the previous plastic. For instance, as mentioned in The Dieline article, it was significantly more difficult for me to figure out which carton contained my preferred variant of OJ (high pulp).
This may seem like nitpicking, but when applied to your website it can mean the difference between a customer finding the exact product they need, finding the information they need to contact you, etc. Given the attention span of the average person, if those tasks aren’t easy and intuitive to accomplish, your users are probably moving on to a competitor. Yes, even if you look “cool.” Design is a marriage of both form and function. Make sure your website does both.
As for me, I’ll be reverting back to my trusty brand of OJ, high pulp and all.
Dave, great post. I know of several phrases to avoid (the worst being “cute!”), but I didn’t realize that this phrase could communicate a lack of understanding the way the form actually communicates a message. Hmmm, I will definitely think through my responses more in the future.
Okay, so reading through some of the Deline comments and what you had mentioned, customers are upset because they can’t find the specific kind of orange juice that’s denoted on the carton? I’m sorry, but I think that’s lame. It’s just like when the new facebook came out. It takes a little while to adjust, but maybe that’s the point. People don’t like change. Maybe if they had kept the words describing the differences in the juices in the same place, they would have had less complaints?