Or is it the other way around?
Which is more important?
It’s a tough question for some—design or usability—but it is a question that you need to know the answer to.
We got into a bit of a discussion about it on Wednesday, with 11 Must-Have Web Design Tools, and I wanted to open up the conversation a little more. Design and/vs. usability can be a controversial topic, especially among designers. Some say usability is everything and others think design and aesthetic appeal are the only things that matter.
Aesthetics
Too many of us designers were taught that you have to be different; you have to do something no one else has thought of if you want to make it in this industry. Unfortunately, this leads us to make some, well, stupid decisions about conventions that are in place for a reason. There are some things we just shouldn’t touch—navigation on a website would be a prime example. I dare you to find the Team section in under five minutes on 8plus9.com or not get a seizure while viewing this portfolio (great design work, but yikes! I wouldn’t ask either of them to design my site!)
Usability
Jakob Nielsen is the most well-known usability advocate the world over. He often preaches that usability is the number one most important thing when building a user interface.
Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.”
- Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
In other words, people are going to expect your website to work the same way as all the other sites that they visit work. They don’t want skinny little bars that jump out at them for the navigation.
Anti-Marketing?
In the comments on 11 Must-Have Web Design Tools, Kent shared an article on Scobleizer about the successes of ugly design. I don’t totally agree with the stance Robert takes on the issue of user-generated content. I understand what he is saying and I think we can see many marketing tactics going into the direction of user-generated content. User-generated content is the essence of Web 2.0 (not the “look” but the concept behind it), but I don’t think it will work for everyone.
Robert mentions Apple, Target and BMW. If they all let Joe Shmo off the street do their marketing campaigns, they would not be successful! Brands like those need to build trust with the consumer and they do that by having professional-looking designs. Perhaps Joe can create a companion design to reach out to a new audience, but having a plain design will not attract most people and I know for me personally, I tend to distrust sites that look like a programmer “designed” them.
Ultimately, though, I think one point Robert is getting at (though he never actually says it) is that people can use bad design, but they won’t use bad usability. Ugly designs may not create the most favorite impression, but it’s better than a gorgeous site that is completely unusable. Good design should be built on top of usability; they are really just different sides of the same coin. If your website doesn’t make a sale, get someone to call you or make people want to subscribe to your blog, what is it there for? It’s rather… useless.
By the way, you should subscribe to Creative Curio 
So what do you think is the relationship between design and usability? Is it design versus usability? Is it design and usability? Another conjunction perhaps?
I think that this link is extremely true. Some people never really grasp the concepts of bad or good design. However, if the website is not usable, then noone is going to be able to overlook that little detail.
I think that the design aspect of a website is crucial, especially in this day and age, but I whole-heartedly agree that if the site is useful but beautiful, then all of that great design work is lost. But if I visited a site and it was purely just a few navigation links and some content, I would most likely never return!
I think that it’s a safe bet to design websites around usable constructs. Trying to wrap usability around a desired design can be a little scary.
For me, the importance of usability didn’t kick in until I witnessed my first user test session. I watched a user try to buy a phone on Cingular’s website (which you think would be easy) and after 10 minutes he gave up frustrated and unsuccessful.
Conducting user test sessions on your own websites is a very humbling experience for a designer, especially after the 4th or 5th user completely misses or can’t figure out that cool feature you put in there.
I would also venture to say that usability is a function of good design and not a separate field, different sides of the same coin.
Jacob,
You are still a student, aren’t you? You show great wisdom in understanding this concept! I hope it carries with you throughout your career. There are so many student designers (I was totally one of them) that don’t know, don’t get it or don’t care when it’s smacked them in the face. I read about it a lot on design forum critiques. I do agree with you, and I also would most likely not return to a site that is visually boring; it would have to have some pretty invaluable content to attract me back. “Design sites around usable constructs.” Bingo! That’s why I like to start out with wireframes (as you’ve seen in my design process for the blog redesign). Jacob, it makes me so happy to see someone understand this!!
Jerrol,
Hehe, feels funny to comment to you (he’s my husband if you all don’t know). I feel like that guy when I’m trying to use apps on Facebook. “Usability is a function of good design.” I like that. Design is, after all, visual communication. You can’t sacrifice the message for the art. If you do, then it’s art, not design.
Yes, I am a student, and thanks!
I have to admit, I’ve learned alot about what I know from people on blogs such as yourself and from reading those critiques on different design forums.
The question is okay, but I think you forgot something extremely important.
What if a website have a typical well known navigation and looks beautiful, but doesn’t have any content, then design and usability is irrelevant.
Lets take industry design. Let us build a loudspeaker!
It looks good, easy to plugin and just works allround, but it isn’t loud and actually can work as a loudspeaker, hmm what then?
Take a look at wikipedia. Bad design, extremely low usability, but the content makes it a reference mark for alot of webusers.
Before I think, design or usability I think content and I guess thats why I never get around doing anything with my own website - I don’t have anything to say
Unix wouldn’t exist today, if your two questions was important.
Drupals backend just lost me two weeks ago, because of bad usability, even though it looks good.. :-/ the main reason is, if I don’t understand it, how can my customers?
Content first, design last.. oh I missed one? Well usability is second nature and often I don’t make complicated sites, except when I shake and bake wikis.
I think there are several ingredients that should be used in every web site design: design and usability are the two of them, the content is another.
The important thing to keep in mind is that all of those ingredients can be as subjective as they are objective. I might not like Gizmodo’s design, but someone else just loves it (otherwise how did it end up on the Top 5 list of the Best Designed blogs in 2008 Bloggies).
Same with usability. For instance, I don’t think that Wikipedia has a bad usability - I always can find what I need on that site - there’s a great tool - search. Of course there are some common issues that make a site usable for any types of users (such as text links should be underlined, and underline should never be used as a decoration only), but there are certain things on the site that some people would find not working for them, while others might consider them working just fine.
And of course the content can also be very subjective. For example, I just can’t seem to understand what is it about Dooce’s content that makes her blog to rank on Technorati Top 100 for severals years in a row, but others seem to think different.
@Inspirationbit
Of course design and content is in the eye of the beholder. I just have to turn on my fictive TV and get a heart attack of bad decisions.
As a wiki guru and admin for about 2 years, mediawiki still surprices me on a weekly basis. mediawiki is a case of extremely bad usability. Search works, but that is just a fraction of its features.
Underline for links? I am very much against it, to a extreme level. Ask Johno and our battles with underlines vs coloured links
Underline is something that was invented for typewriters for mechanical simplicity. Underline was to substitute oblique and italic..
Underline makes the eyes stop when reading and it makes alot of unnecessary lines too.. (linies = html 1.0)
I think about this periodically, often—I’ll admit—after running into discussions that seem to have little or no grounding in the notion that there’d be no need for design and designers if there weren’t messages, ads, books, and more that needed to get to readers.
This is not one of those discussions, but the question does remind me of it.
There is certainly a call for art for art’s sake, but I’m thinking of the times I hear artist’s taking themselves, rather than what they do, seriously. For the latter, I think design becomes an overwhelming force. If an artist has real regard for the work, I believe as well as the eventual readers, viewers, or listeners, I think usability has to be right up there with the desire to create.
You’re confusing graphic art with design, and the distinction makes a rather important difference. The usability design of a site is design.
Finally I reject the reductionist tyranny of “Or” it’s not an either/or question. Many direct response designs — specifically seeking conversions over Clio awards — use graphics and text successfully.
Design has always been the alternative genius of “And.” The real question — for design — is usable and useful collaboration of usability and graphic art.
They just aren’t pointless graphic art imagery — they use infographics. And just because graphic artists aren’t familiar with visual information design, it does not follow usability is more important.
Rather it does point out what sad state of affairs results when usability is in one isolated silo, graphics people are in their own silo, and no meaningful collaboration takes place.
(Hint: Hyperbolic “us versus them” posts make for good Diggs, bad collaborations)
Graphics don’t have to be irrelevant to the user’s objectives. But graphic artists on the web must evolve from shoehorning a pointless logo and generic stock photos into a layout.
Based on the arguement as put forth so far, encyclopedias could improve usability by eliminating graphics.
Visual merchandising, infographics, and visual information design are everything irrelevant graphics are not. And that is a testable proposition, with plenty of evidence to back it up. It’s just that usability people have ignored relevant graphic design, lumping everything together under the umbrella term graphic art.
Just because the term information graphic is unfamiliar doesn’t mean infographics don’t exist. Just because graphics on the web are mired in superficiality and irrelevance, it does not follow alternatives don’t exist.
A well designed product is a usable product.
I agree that they are intertwined. If your graphic design is not usable for whatever its purpose is, then it won’t be able to communicate much – except that you thought more about your own fancies than the user’s needs. :)
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