John Cleese’s “Letter to America”

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Neatorama » Blog Archive » 24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot

I am no expert on web accessibility, but it’s not that hard to code and design sites that are more accessible for people with disabilities. I am a print designer who has switched over to doing web design a few years ago. In print design, I can say exactly what size this font should be and where this graphic should go exactly on a page. You can’t do that on the web and you have to take into account things such as different monitor sizes and user controlled font sizes. Building that flexibility into a site is one of the most difficult things in creating a site. But, it can be accomplished and I wonder if a lot of these designers/developers are trying too hard to make their designs pixel perfect. It could also be they are too lazy to make them this way or learn new techniques. There are still large web design and development firms designing sites using tables. So, getting people to change how they think when creating sites and using web standards is going to take a some time yet.

A perfect example of “Design by committee” is the recent redesign of the Vancouver Canucks’ uniforms. It looks as though it started out as a good idea but went sideways before it was completed. They got some things right and somethings terribly wrong.

Here is what I think the conversation sounded like when the committee got together to decide what to do…

Member #1: “We really should go back to the vintage color style of the uniforms. Everybody seems to love the blue/green/white by looking at our jersey sales. The vintage jerseys are outselling our current version. Plus, the color represents the west coast so much better.”

Committee Head: “I like the color, but we can’t get rid of the constipated whale logo. Even though an Orca in need of a laxative has nothing to do with a Canuck, we have to keep it. The ownership group is Orca Bay so we have to keep it.”

Member #1: “But the color of the whale logo is all wrong for the vintage color scheme. It just won’t work.”

Committee Head: “How about we change the color of the constipated whale so it’s just blue, black and white? I know it will look all washed out but it will work, I think.”

Member #3: “Wait! We should put the vintage logo on the jersey and get rid of the whale.”

Committee Head: “We absolutely cannot get rid of the whale. Corporate will not go for that even though our fans like the vintage logo so much better.”

Member #3: “Then we should put the vintage logo on each shoulder. There’s lots of room on the jerseys for us to clutter it up.”

Committee Head: “Good idea. We wouldn’t want to have a focussed logo so let’s have two.”

Member #4: “With the Olympics coming in 2010 we’re going to have a lot of tourists visiting Vancouver. We really need to put “Vancouver” somewhere on the jerseys so all of these people can buy our hockey jersey and say ‘We’ve been in Vancouver.’ ”

Committee Head: “That’s a fantastic idea. What a great way to add more clutter. Plus, our fans are so dumb they probably don’t know they live in Vancouver. How smart can they be when they liked the vintage jerseys instead of the version we’ve had for the past ten years that we spent so much money on designing? Decision made. Meeting adjourned.”

All of this is a perfect example of a ‘kludge’ (or alternatively ‘kluge’) which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as:

“An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.”

By the way, this redesign cost the team $1 million.

The site is now powered by WordPress, which is a fantastic blogging platform and Content Management System. Even the more “designy” types like me can work with it because it’s so easy to use. I never lost any hair or have any scars on my forehead from banging my head into my desk due to frustration.

When it comes to clients, I’m the worst one I have. I’m never completely happy with designs I do for myself. I’ve thrown away two or three times more ideas for my own website than I’ve actually used. I am happy with this design and how I’ve managed to keep it fairly clean. I’m not completely happy with the portfolio page set up but I figured I would come up with a better idea after a few weeks. Sometimes you just can’t force a design.

Anyways, I hope you all like it and would love to hear your thoughts. I’m looking forward to talking about one of the things I’m passionate about: Design.