Datasheet

DISTINCTIVE DESIGN

One of the principles maintained through this book is that content must be emphasized

tastefully, with serious consideration about how your visitors may be a ected by the

increased level of awareness to one item (against the lessened awareness of other con-

tent). Remember that balance a ects your content and the value it inherits. Your goal is

to ensure that viewers regard the obvious material on a page as useful, not as a blatant

spam attempt.

Important

Opinions may vary on the extent you can emphasize content, but it’s

recommended that unless you know what you’re doing, avoid forced actions

such as pop-up windows, protection scripts (like anti-right-clickers), and the

ever-annoying automatic music-playing jukeboxes.

Negotiating neutrality

When you remove emphasis from a page, what remains will increase in strength. Using

neutrality e ectively is an inspired concept, isn’t it? In many ways it’s like a talent con-

test. When fewer people enter, it’s much easier to identify the most talented individuals,

but as the numbers increase designers rely more on comparison and elimination (perhaps

unjustly) to give ourselves the best chance of  nding the stars amongst the masses.

Focusing on what’s on the page and what already has emphasis is easy (because attention

grabbing is what it intends to do). But the capability to disinherit and demote enhance-

ments and  ourishes (while involving some di cult choices) can both reduce the level of

noise that exists within an interface and bring some stability to the page (Figure 1-8 high-

lights how attention is spread).  e more neutrality you assign, the more direct the e ects

are upon content that retains its status and levels of importance.

If you already have a website, strip away all of the excess, both graphically and contextu-

ally (from existing emphasis). Once your content sits on an unstyled and visibly similar

page, it becomes easier to see when you have an excess of information, thereby making

your distinctive content harder for the reader to identify.  is action could encourage you

to apply emphasis more intelligently or with greater constraint. By doing this you decon-

struct the aesthetic using reductionism (a principle examined later in this chapter).

Important

Whenever you change your source code (or critical ﬁ les like images), make a

backup or use a version control system just in case you need to return to the

older edition later! It’s common sense to safeguard your work, especially if

you’re making potentially dramatic changes to it.

05_9781119992981-ch01.indd 1405_9781119992981-ch01.indd 14 5/13/11 2:12 PM5/13/11 2:12 PM