Tier One My Ass - Part Three

or What the Hell is She Going Off On Now?

On my last blog, Tier One My Ass - Part two, which I know you all read; Mark R. posted the following.

"Personally, I'm not a DIGM major, but what I take away from the class is that it's focused on the Design aspect which is more concerned with the visual aspect and less with back-end processes. Not to say coding is not important by any means.

Being that the class is still at the 2000 level, I don't necessarily bash it because it's trying to get us to think about what we see on the screen as end users. I would imagine that they would create more classes directed towards html, css, in addition to some javascript concepts following this one.

I think this class is directed toward how digital media students can use their design background to be displayed on the web and what works visually, MUSE being the quick way to establish that within one semester.

Coming down to my final two semesters I've learned this: If there is an area that you wish to accel at and enjoy, usually you'll learn it on your own out of desire or necessity (on the job or for a job). Most degree programs are designed to give you the "journeymen/journeywomen" type of qualifications."

Mark's first paragraph is where every "print designer and peasant" fail. The secret is in the subject, "Web Design". What is the first word, its web, NOT design. I shall explain. The web is a media all to its self, with its own unique problems and strengths and more importantly EXPECTATIONS. Now that is an important word, you can tell because I used all caps and bolded it. The problem is when print designers and graphic artists (and worst of all the artsy fartsy fops) see that HTML is easy and start to the think that they can add web design to their portfolio, then come to find out it is not so easy and requires them to actually learn a new discipline. So they whine and cry and bitch and moan and sadly get positions of power where the spew their "whaaaaa whaaaa" and then we get programs like Muse that are designed to shut the cry babies the f**k up!

Problem is people expect a completely different experience from the web than they do static print design! Studies and cases abound that a visually equivalent of "the ugly sister" will always out perform the "prom queen" IF the ugly site meets and or exceeds the expectations of the beautiful one. E-commerce is an example where I will ask you this.. would you rather trust your credit card to an ugly site that is easy and intuitive to navigate, easy to understand and explains its self and the purchase process both textually and graphically, that can accommodate you if you need to increase the font to read it or if blind, is clear to understand and navigate with a reader, that makes printing one of the pages easy and retains the formatting yet offers an ink saving version to print as well and loads fast or the "OHMYGOD you are SOOOO beautiful" web site that has none of those aforementioned qualities? (Yeah for long run-on sentences)


You know how you answered, and that is the point! With out knowing how to code cleanly, with out knowing SEO, without knowing how to implement accessibility standards and without knowing usability practices your site will be at best the prom queen everyone wants sex with but no one marries, so she ends up a crack whore while the plain, but reliable, site ends up running for president (Hilary reference).

Mark's second paragraph, to me, is disturbing. "Being that the class is still at the 2000 level". It is disturbing in that it is 2013 and yet we are not outraged that the class IS at a 2000 level, especially in mentality and attitude! This is supposed to be a TIER ONE school! Its all over the campus and in all the advertising and see... its even in the title of this blog! This class is NOT a tier one class though.. this major is NOT a tier one major but I, and all the rest of us, are PAYING for tier one and are expected to perform as if it was (i.e. the purpose of writing the research papers and the undergraduate thesis all added last semester because as a tier one school we are expected to "add" to the knowledge base now but that is another rant).

Mark's third paragraph is probably true and that is why it fails as well. As I said your site may work visually but if it can't do what is expected from a web site today it fails. Get into your head right now and repeat web designers ARE NOT print designers. Print has its own issues and rules and disciplines that must be mastered. The web has more! We as web designers MUST know more that any print monkey must ever know. Even if afterwards you work at a firm where all you do is design the graphic elements, know HOW it is going to be coded, what colors you can and cannot use for text and back ground, knowing how people use a web page and what will help to get it a higher ranking WILL make your graphic design BETTER!

Twenty years in this business learning the hard way has taught me this and over and this has been proven true. Twenty years I have heard the whining and crying from print designers and others that they want to play and create for the internet but don't want to have to know any code or anything else other than how to upload their their graphics to the web. Twenty years and I have seen program after program come to try and shut them up and each and everyone failed. Now its Muse and it will fail for the simple reason that you can't design for the web without knowing WHY things are done the way they are on the web.

Until the college of Technology and the University of Houston stop treating web design and development like a bastard child of print you will have to educate yourself and consider your tuition for these classes and the work you do in them as buying your diploma because you certainly will never learn how to be a web designer/developer from them.

Note, thanks Mark for your comment and I was NOT trying to pick on you *snugz*