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Chapter 1: Why Design?
Or maybe the problem is with the mindset of the developers making the MOSS 2007 sites. Maybe
they don’t have the training and exposure to make the sites visually impressive. Or maybe there is
general apathy about design. Perhaps they just care a lot more about functionality than design. After all,
most clients sign off on projects based on what they do, not how they look. Or maybe it’s just that these
developers don’t feel they have the time to make the design look distinct, and besides, there are plenty of
out-of-the-box solutions that would work just fine. Slap on the client’s logo and be done with design.
This book will attempt to put new emphasis on design. Specifically, this chapter will try to point out the
‘‘why’’ of good design. Why does it matter? Why should developers care? Why should managers care?
And why should clients care? The rest of the book will be more aimed at the ‘‘how’’ of good design: How
to create a new design. How to create master pages and CSS files to support your new design. How to
incorporate themes. How to make more accessible designs. How to make MOSS 2007 work for the design
you create.
With that, it’s time to get started.
The Million-Dollar Question: What Makes
Good Design?
This is a tough question to field. If you ask 100 different Web designers today what is critical for good
design, you will not see the same answers brought up by all of them. There will be a lot of recurring
themes, but varying weight or importance will be given to each one (if mentioned at all).
However, even with that being true, there are definitely some things that any designer should give
thought to when coming up with a design:
❑ Usability This should probably be at the top of every designer’s list. If the site is amazing look-
ing and could have easily come right out of a top New York designer’s art portfolio, that is cool.
But if a user has no idea they have to press the broken toothpick depicted in the bottom corner of
the collage to get to the Contact Us area of the Web site, designers have missed the point. More
important, if that site is commercial, the owners may miss a sale (or a lot of sales). Usability has
to be taken into consideration when planning the design of a site. This will include navigation,
spatial layout, information provided, and general user experience (for example, if the user is pre-
sented with a shocking strobe-light effect when they visit the site, they may never come back). A
Web site is built for its user base and failing to cater to the people that use the site can have tragic
consequences for the longevity of the site.
❑ Aesthetics Thought should be given to the colors that will be used, how they play into the
general scheme of the site and its principles, and how they will shape the experience of the
user. This is different from usability in that usability means that the site visitor can use the site
effectively, whereas aesthetics is a question of how much the user enjoys the feeling of the site.
To extend the preceding example, if the users are easily able to find the ‘‘Contact Us’’ button
because it is logically placed and easily identified, they might just use it to tell you that they
hate your site if the colors, images, and font choices are giving them headaches. (Of course,
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