Cooking a Website

Paral­lels between coo­king and desig­ning inter­fa­ces and websites.

by Dmi­try Fadeyev* [usa­bi­lity­post]

I’m not really an expert at coo­king but I do love to watch pro­fes­si­o­nals cook. I mean Miche­lin star level pro­fes­si­o­nals. What these guys pro­duce is really ama­zing and its also inte­res­ting to see just how much work some of these dishes involve and how many uni­que tech­ni­ques are used. It’s not just food really, it’s art. Some art is there to be seen: pain­tings, some art is to be lis­te­ned to: music, and some art is to be tas­ted. Anyhow… what does all this have to do with websites?

Well, what I do find inte­res­ting is that I’m seeing seve­ral paral­lels between coo­king and desig­ning inter­fa­ces and web­si­tes. Let’s see…

1. You need to pick com­ple­men­tary fla­vors
Cre­a­ting a Miche­lin star win­ning dish requi­res a natu­rally good palate. You need to know how fla­vors come together in order to cre­ate a fusion that works. Cho­ose the wrong ingre­di­ent and you could ruin the whole dish.

In web design you need to be able to cre­ate a design that works as a whole; when all the ele­ments are sli­ced and coded it must come together as a cohe­rent page, with each ele­ment rein­for­cing the other. Kee­ping a con­sis­tent theme is cru­cial, as is pic­king a color palette that works.

2. It’s all about the fla­vor of the main ingre­di­ents
Each dish has a star ingre­di­ent, be it the deli­cate scal­lop, or the hearty fil­let of beef; everything else on the plate works to bring out its fla­vor. All the other ele­ments should sup­port that main ingre­di­ent and work to bring out its fla­vor. If there are too many other things on the plate, or the other fla­vors are over­powe­ring, the main ingre­di­ent beco­mes in dan­ger of get­ting lost.

Your web design is a user inter­face, and as such it’s an inter­face to something. That something is of course the site’s con­tent. The con­tent should always be the star, not the design (unless it’s a port­fo­lio site where the site itself is often part of the con­tent). A good inter­face works to bring out the con­tent, make sense of it, and ulti­ma­tely fade away.

3. Taste and pre­sen­ta­tion both mat­ter
If you go to a res­tau­rant, you expect your food to look good as well as taste good. These ele­ments are part of deli­ve­ring an expe­ri­ence. If the food tas­tes fan­tas­tic but looks like dog’s din­ner then the expe­ri­ence is ruined.

Simi­larly, if the con­tent on a web­site is great, but the inter­face is ugly, then you may still use the site but the user expe­ri­ence won’t be at a level that it could be. On the other side, fan­tas­tic design cou­pled with bad con­tent just isn’t going to deli­ver. Howe­ver, when you achi­eve a fusion of great design and great con­tent you deli­ver a user expe­ri­ence that your visi­tors will enjoy and remem­ber, which is sure to bring them back again and again.

4. Too many things on the plate con­fuse the palate
A good dish has a theme — a selec­tion of fla­vors com­bi­ned together with a direc­tion and intent; a fusion that deli­vers a uni­que expe­ri­ence. Ingre­di­ents must be cho­sen well so that they go com­ple­ment and rein­force each other. If you put too many ingre­di­ents on the plate then you risk con­fu­sing the palate as the dish beco­mes a cacophony of tastes.

The same is true in design. Too many fonts des­troy the typo­graphi­cal theme of the page. Too many colors dilute the brand. Too much con­tent makes the page dif­fi­cult to digest. Don’t rush into sty­ling everything or adding everything you can think of. Appro­ach your web design with a stra­te­gic stance. What’s your bran­ding — what color should domi­nate? What is the main font that you’re going to use and why? What should the rea­der get from this page? What don’t they want?

5. It takes res­traint and con­fi­dence to achi­eve sim­pli­city
A dish that looks sim­ple doesn’t mean it will taste sim­ple or deli­ver lit­tle. Sim­pli­city has an ele­gance of its own.

Desig­ning sim­ple web­si­tes and inter­fa­ces is all about res­traint. Yes, you can uti­lize the latest trends and Pho­toshop skills, you can add gra­di­ents, wet flo­ors and high­lights — but does the design really need it? What value do these things add, if any? Redu­cing a design to its most basic com­po­nents and arran­ging them in a sim­ple and ele­gant fashion isn’t easy — it’s very hard. Mini­ma­lism is beau­ti­ful because everything on the page is there for a rea­son, nothing is super­flu­ous, and when form is so tigh­tly wrap­ped around func­tion the results are beautiful.

*Dmi­try is a co-founder of Pixelshell web design stu­dio. His latest pro­ject is cal­led the The­mes Bou­ti­que, a Word­Press theme store. Other pro­jects include Logos­pire, which is a user powe­red logo ins­pi­ra­tion gal­lery. Dmi­try also has a per­so­nal blog at Fadeyev.net

Arti­gos relacionados:

• Sel­ling Usability
• Usa­bi­lity Body of Knowledge
• Busi­ness Model
• Con­cept of Design
• Annoying Web