I’ve realised that I’ve suffered in the web marketplace for being too… how shall I put it… back end.

If you ask me to architect a web or software application for pretty much any situation, I can quite quickly figure out roughly what is needed in the application and the technology needs for the product.  It’s a fantastic thing, because most of the time, the technology that I come across and is produced by other people is either quite poor (mainly when a designer has cross-trained to being a techie) or is complete overkill (mainly when a software person starts to produce technology for the web).  The ability to produce web technology is something that people have used and reused my company and also my specific ability for, for many years.

The interesting thing is that over the years, I’ve also seen what has and what hasn’t worked for a lot of websites in terms of design. A large proportion of this is due to the user interface design or what is also known as User Experience (or UX).

User Experience

Source: http://www.uxnet.org/

“User Experience (abbreviated: UX) is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design. This can range from a specific artifact, such as a cup, toy or website, up to larger, integrated experiences such as a museum or an airport.”

Now, that encompasses a lot more than the web, but we have seen, with the advent of web 2.0, that design is important and that just looking good and capturing attention is not the only thing that matters.  The interaction is also important, and there are many factors that relate to how good or bad an experience is.

I am no User Experience guru, and I’ve come across only a very few good UX people. They can come from both the design and the technology side of the fence, but very often, they are not the best technologists and not the best designers. They should, however, be cherished as vitally important people.

My Inability To Design

I have always said that web design is the fluff around the back end technology. I think I may have been doing a disservice to all the good web designers out there. The funny thing is, I’ve almost never met one of those good designers.  There is too much rubbish talked about web design that if you google it, you end up with complete tripe.  It’s also true that there are still people talking about how frames are bad… GET INTO THE 21ST CENTURY.

I cannot tell you what colours work well together, or how to produce a great template design for a website, or even exactly what makes a design great. I have friends and colleagues who are significantly better at it than me and I would use them for that.  The interesting thing for me is that I can tell you when I like using something, and that I want to keep using it.

Reducing Design – Simplicity

There is a trend in web 2.0 to reduce the amount of design a website needs, and to increase the thought on and simplicity of the user’s experience (which is part of design, but not the fluff part). This sometimes leads to simple, but not necessarily pretty interfaces. Twitter is one interface which is simple to use, but definitely not nice in the designer-y way.

But, I like things that reduce design and increase simplicity.  Mainly because then it simplifies everything for me as someone who designs technology.  Too often, I’ve been involved with applications that are all about the technology leading the design… “we must allow the user to be able to update their preferences from all pages across the site, through a link because we spent months developing the functionality”.  I’m very happy about wondering more about what people really need in an application.

Talking About My Start Up

I’m currently working on a start up. It’s taking a while to get off the ground, but it’s getting there. I’ve spent a long time on the technology and have what I would describe as a prototyped (but not designed) interface. The interesting thing I’m coming up against is, how designed do I want it to be? There are essentially only 3 functions across the whole of the main site, and everything else is in password controlled management sections – these tend to require less design, and more handholding, and as such these are pretty standard.  However, those 3 sections of the main site could be described as search, view and send information.  It’s that simple.

I have a problem. I’m not a designer. I’m not the guy that can produce the fluff.  However, I am the guy that produces the technology.  I have produced flows, scenarios, wireframes and have a specification for the site. But as I don’t have the designer-y gene, I’m forced to look elsewhere in my world for that designer. But have I gone too far without them already? Is it too late?  Am I just going to end up templating my own technology and hoping?

The design is vitally important. If it looks wrong, people will slate it. But if the UX is wrong, then I’m in big trouble.

Should I have done this differently? Probably. Have I got more guts than most to get into a startup? Yes.

All I know is that UX is key, and in a startup, you have to be many different things. You can’t be expert in them all.