Design%20Fundamentals

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Design Fundamentals

• An Introduction

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Outline

• What is design?
• Designing web pages (later...see Chapter 6)
• Designing web sites (later)
• Your web site design (quarter-long evolution)

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What is Design?

• Many elements around us are designed
• Communities, buildings, landscapes, road systems,
  information systems, web pages, web sites,
  lectures
• The word design can be a noun (check out my
  design) or a verb (I need to design my web site)
  
• So what does the term design mean?
• Ever take the riverboat tour of Chicago? What is
  it like? What did you learn?

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Design Perspectives on the web

• Design is about creating something with a
  purpose.
• Design is that area of human experience, skill
  and knowledge which is concerned with mans
  ability to mould his environment to suit his
  material and spiritual needs.
• Design is more than just technology, it is a
  problem solving process in which the form of the
  final product must occupy a function.

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Is it possible to teach design?

• While
• basic sciences rely on the scientific method and
  testing of hypothesis, and
• the arts depend primarily on intuition,
• design is somewhere in between
• it borrows from both disciplines, developing
  methods and predispositions for acquiring
  knowledge, skills and attitudes that respond to
  the complexity of real life situations.

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Design Talking Points

• Design is a process that produces some sort of
  solution.
• A design solution combines two things
• A perception of the environment held by the
  designer, e.g. who the audience is, how they will
  use your site, and
• Features of the solution such as colors, page
  layout, fonts, animation, styles, etc.
• The designers goal is to match the features of
  the design to the environment.
• Note, designers all perceive the environment
  differently!

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Why we go through iterations of designs

• The quality of the design solution is a function
  of this fit between the environment and the
  designs features.
• It is difficult for people to describe good
  design.
• It is MUCH easier for people (e.g. users) to
  detect examples of POOR fit.
• The adequacy of a genuinely designed form can
  only be evaluated by noting its misfits with the
  context in which it is placed. (Alexander, 1964.)

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True or false

• Design can be taught.
• Different people can arrive at different
  solutions, all of which can be considered good
  design.
• Most DePaul students web sites will look similar
  as long as they follow good design principles.

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Good Design Principles

• Alignment
• Means that items on the page are lined up with
  each other.
• Key
• Choose one alignment and use it on the entire page

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Good Design Principles

• Proximity
• The principle of proximity refers to the
  relationships that item develop when they are
  close together, in close proximity.
• When two items are close, they appear to have a
  relationship, to belong together
• When items that belongs together are grouped
  closer together, the information is much more
  organized and easier to read

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Good Design Principles

• Repetition
• The concept of repetition is that throughout a
  project you repeat certain elements that tie all
  the disparate parts together.
• Each page in the web site should look like it
  belongs to the same web site, the same company,
  the same concept repetition makes it happen.

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Good Design Principles

• Contrast
• Contrast draws your eye into a page, it pulls you
  in.
• Contrasting elements guide your eyes around the
  page, create a hierarchy of information, and
  enable you to skim through the vast of
  information and pick out what you need.
• Colors, graphic signposts, or spatial
  arrangements
• To be effective, contrast must be strong dont
  be a wimp
• Exceptions
• No need for contrast when you want to present a
  continuous text, in a novel or article

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Good Design Principles

• Contrast
• Create a Focal Point
• On screen, package, paper, etc
• Dressing
• etc