Datasheet

CHAPTER ONE THE DISTINCTION OF WEB DESIGN
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Figure -:  is is one of the cleanest environments known to man . . . a blank website.
Obviously, as a web designer, you are required to include content or items of interest for the
visitor, and this coincidently means the addition of material to your once derelict yet simpli-
 ed blank page. Clean can be very beautiful, but context and richness have more value! One
beautiful example of simplicity in e ect is the www.madebysofa.com site, which shows
that combining quality content with a basic layout can still be rich in distinction.
Individuals building a website from the ground up, in which nothing is set in stone, should
take time to examine not only what options are available to provide emphasis where it’s
needed, but also to refrain from applying stylistic, graphical, structural, or behavioral
emphasis and distinction within the web page unless absolutely sure. If you can get away
with simpler, it may work to your users’ bene t.
Individuals adapting an existing site to make it more distinctive (and perhaps more valu-
able to the visitor) should consider reformatting all of the content back to a neutral state
like plain text. Otherwise, you can simply examine the various individual components of
your site and decide on individual changes as needed.
How you choose to transform the emptiness or existing construction into an elegant and
optimized environment is up to you. (Figure 1-10 shows a basic example of how a more
technical interface can be simpli ed.) What is great about distinctive design is that you
can implement it progressively over a period of time, or you can use it as a basis for a
design built from the ground up.  e result of your work will be an interface that bene ts
more users.
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