King Marketing

To Joe and Andy, there’s a clear line between development, aka back-end coding, and design, aka user experience design.

Of course they’re two different things, but to me and the Great Unwashed mass of actual web users, it’s a distinction which makes no difference; they are both aspects of the process by which web sites are created, in the popular understanding, this is “web design.”

Perhaps this popular terminology is inadequate to describe what coders and UX people do; I’m sure that some hardcore back-end coders would sniff at being called mere “web designers.” But poorly-designed backend will affect the user experience and vice versa; they are two halves of a whole. To the end-user, it either works or it doesn’t; on a larger scale, either it solves their problem or it doesn’t.

If there’s a distinction that I feel needs to be drawn, it’s between best practices in visual design, i.e. layout, from issues of aesthetics, i.e. styling. UX design is not decoration! It’s a bit like confusing the field of commercial interiors or space planning with interior decoration - really not the same thing at all.

In any case, I’m far from claiming to be an expert, I’m standing on the shoulders of giants here. Really, this is an exercise in collecting a lot of dispersed information and trying to synthesize it in a clear, meaningful, objective and articulate way, in order to translate what I instinctively feel to be correct but maybe didn’t have the words to explain before. It’s as much a learning process for me as anything else, not some grand declaration of what is Right and Wrong.

I’m using the concept of design patterns as a way to present these findings in small, interrelated, modular concepts, groups of which can be applied to any particular project. Ultimately I’d like to create some sort of repository of patterns (probably as a wiki) if people think it’ll be useful.

To those who are unfamiliar with design patterns, the books A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building (by the architect Christopher Alexander et al) are the best source material. There’s also an online collection of urban design patterns here if you want to get a feel for the format.

If anyone would like to contribute relevant ideas or links to the discussion, correct me where I go wrong etc, I’d welcome it.