Top 10 design pitfalls: No.1 - Lack of focus
Ivan | Thu, 2005-02-24 16:20You need to have an order of importance in your communication. Many designs around us try to say too many things all at the same time. When all the elements have the same weight the reader has nothing to focus on. He gets lost. He gets frustrated and you lose your audience.
Establish what's the most important thing you want to say and make it the most important. Everything else should come later. Besides identifying the most important element, you should create levels of importance for the rest of the elements as well.
Lack of focus: CNET vs. Good visual hierarchy: Apple
Importance can be established in many different ways. It's not just size, it can be the positioning. Top left, top and center can be more important areas than bottom left or right sides. Importance can be also established with colors. For example a tiny element can be the most important if it's red in a black and white layout. The content itself can be an importance shifter as well. For example a face or any pair of eyes are drawing attention.
However, this is not a rule, as there are no rules in design. It's more of a guideline. There can be cases when highlighting an element goes against the requirements of a design. You may want to stress the equality of importance of your elements. Or you actually want to avoid attention to a single element. An example would be designing wallpaper.
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Another pitfall that detracts from the message is poor English - "loose" means not gathered, not tethered, not collected, wild, not fixed. "Lose" is the word. But really good site nonetheless!
Doh, anonymous beat me to it...
Anyway, why does every Internet "writer" in existence think "lose" is written "loose"? What the heck causes this??
As great as the Apple site is for looking up product information, the organization is still pretty rough, try finding the investor relations area to their website... most public companies have a link to it fron their front page in consideration of their generous investors, or at the least an "about us" section then a link from there... but not w/ apple, no clear indication as to how to get to the corporate information... gotta go to the sitemap or search, looks like someone isn't too interested if anyone invests in them ;)
Before you slam the "Internet writer" too much, please take into consideration that Ivan lives in Bahrain, not the United States. While his English is pretty darn good, it's not perfect.
Nobody's perfect, so I'll just ask that you cut him a little slack in this area.
That being said, thank you for pointing out the typo, I'll fix it immediately.
The second anonymous clearly does not grasp what drives Apple or it's core beliefs.
The truth is that Investor Relations is clearly 2nd to Apple's customers. It is but one of the so called 'faults' that many investors has had with them over the years when ignorantly comparing them relentlessly to PC manufacturers and traditional companies. On the other hand, there are those investors like myself that applaud a different focus - one that can be arguably called customer first - but is in reality the combined notion of 'think different' and being the best that you can be.
Not everyone believes that investors and profits should be worshipped above all else. Some people want to make a genuine difference with their investments - be those financial or intellectual or creative - and believe that this is the best long term approach for themselves.
Dellites, Compaquers, Packard-Bellers, NECers, IBMers, HPers and so on have always had a conceptual problem understanding why this company from Cupertino with a minimal market share would spend so much more on research and development than anyone else in the PC market. They always gave their advice to follow their lead and conform. But whose lead do these companies follow when it comes to product innovation, customer satisfaction, styling, direction, and so on? Microsofts? Please.
Anonymous further derides the Apple website for not conforming to how "most public companies" do it - and in doing so they expose their profound ignorance of a company that has never and will never succeed by conforming. He/she goes on to make the oddly prophetic announcement that "(it) looks like someone isn't too interested if anyone invests in them" The prophetic part is the use of the word "anyone." He/she's right. Apple knows it will never be everything to everyone and has never tried to stake that ground. It's easy to say that Apple is really only interested in those investing with them that believe in their approach and choose to risk their capital for the rewards that this approach offers.
Comparing the websites of CNET to APPLE is like comparing APPLEs to ORANGES... The two sites have two completely different functions. Anyone who knows about web design relizes that the APPLE site would appear to have the same "lack of focus" if it tried to convey the same amount and breadth of information that CNET does. APPLE has a clean crisp well designed site with an clear objective, to communicate its brand with confidence and consistancy. CNET on the other hand is where one would go if you needed an idea of what choices were out there in the world of software, computers, and electronics. Comparing the websites of CNET to APPLE is like comparing the NY Times to a Lexus brochure.
Wow, way to read too much into what I said. Excuse me for criticizing Apple, the end all and be all of the ideal company.
Simply stating that from a design standpoint, the IR portion of their site is not ideally presented, we get a 5 paragraph response on why Apple is better than PCs. "Most Public Companies" does not necessarily refer to Dell, Compaq, HP, etc... let's take a look at Pixar, Apple's half-brother, a clear line to the IR section, other "neutral" companies with a more well defined path to their IR content, Google, Oakley, Hersheys, Discovery Networks, etc...
Having a good IR site does not imply that a company thrives on investors and profits alone, an IR site is where a customer would go to learn about a company's Corporate Governance policies and even get information on who is it that is steering the company (Bios on the CEO, CTO, CFO, COO, etc...) or what the company's long term goals are. IR sites bring a sense of transparancy to the visitor, really all those little tidbits of corporate information that all the fans at sites such as TUAW take great care in analyzing. All in all it is in a company's best interest to have a well designed and easy to find IR site.
I'm glad you took so much time to read what I wrote, and felt so moved that you would go off on a zealous rant that quickly degraded in to why Apples are better than PCs.
Again, as great as they are, ther IR site still sucks. Go on, tell me what an evil PC user I am.
You still don't get it. Apple and Macs are neither better nor worse than other PCs in this discussion. They are simply different. It is their difference that makes them unique and desirable to some, while not to others like yourself. No worries. They understand this. You do not. Ranting about how Apple should conform to others standards is the delusion of your thinking.
Think different.
I agree with anonymous. : )
I think anonymous commenting should be terminated.
As much as I hate registering for stuff online (I REALLY HATE IT)...if I can get through the process, anyone can.
Other sites allow un-registered postings but have a field where you can enter a name.
I understand where a site needs to make people register to prevent abuse, but when there isn't much abuse, it's better to allow unregistered postings. I simply don't want to register at every last site just to make a constructive comment once in a while.
yes, i agree with Phos and the latest commenter. that's how it's gonna be in CB v2. thx!
Do you get that much abuse? If so, fair enough if you want to make folk jump through hoops and register. But you'll just replace Anonymous with Fictional - though at least in extremis you'll be able to trace back to a Hotmail address.
In any case, I can't see why any of the above comments should make you feel the need to end anomymous posting. There's not too much vitriol in this example of the regularly-disinterred Apple vs the World debate. Nor is the first commenter unfairly negative or personal - design folk too often ignore how loose use of words can lose the message.
BTW, you accepting any requests for v2? Whether or not, it'd be nice to have the site more legible. Apple (or Microsoft) don't do small pale grey text on dark grey background.
Yes. In v2, which is coming soon, we will have a light theme, besides the dark one.
yes, very good in information. keep it up.
yes, it would be fantastic if people got their nose out of apples ass once in a while.