Vintage

The World Wide Web: A New Medium for Design

Conclusion

From the areas of discussion above, it would seem there are two main issues. The first is a lack of standardisation in the medium, with designers spending large portions of their time and effort just getting their sites to work on a variety of browsers. The second is that, although Flash can solve many of these problems, some designers need to be careful that they don't let the many abilities of such software influence their design. Also by using Flash their work will sit outside the traditional hypertext navigation, so great attention has to be paid to maintaining the same level of usability. If you have a good idea for a site, it will work no matter what technology is used. It also worth remembering that the web was primarily designed as a source of information, where 'content is king'. If your site has interesting content, it navigates well and everyone can read it, you have won half the battle.

Bibliography

Boer, L, Strengholt, G and Velthoven, W (1997) Website Graphics: the best of global site design
Thames and Hudson Inc., New York
Burgoyne, P and Faber, Liz (1999) Reload: Browser 2.0: The Internet Design Project
Laurance King, London
Dredge, S (2000) Interview with Jakob Nielsen
Cre@teOnline, September 2000, pages 26-29
Drew, K (2000) Remote Control - Diary of a Launch: MTV2
Cre@teOnline, August 2000, pages 36-40
Franklin, D and Patton, B (2000) Flash 4! Creative Web Animation
Macromedia Press, California
Nielsen, J, Useit.com (2000) Flash: 99% Bad
UseIt.com URL
Ward, M, BBC News Online (2000) From Boo.com to Boo.gone
BBC NEWS Online URL

The World Wide Web:
A New Medium for Design

Resulting essay from a Design Discourse assignment, that was submitted in June 2001

Further Information

MTV.co.uk (Archived 2001)
MTV.co.uk today
Radiohead.com (Archived 2001)
Radiohead.com today
amazon.co.uk (Archived 2001)
amazon.co.uk today
UseIt.com
Web Interface useability advice from Jakob Nielsen