Re: FN-FORUM: wellvetted.com

date posted 10th January 2006 19:35

On 10 Jan 2006, at 19:47, Tony Crockford wrote:

> you're singling the visual elements of design out from that.

Actually I'm not.

By a well designed site I mean one that is usable, accessible and
attractive.

Design encompasses the elements of a product which the user interacts
with. The parts the user doesn't interact with are engineering.

With a Ferarri the chassis, steering wheel and seats are designed.

The engine and electronics are engineered.

The difference between the designed and engineered parts of a product
is that with the engineered parts the only thing that matters is the
performance (horsepower, download speed etc) whereas the designed
parts are about the users experience of them (though there's always
an engineering component).

With a website the visual (and in the case of accessibility the
aural) aspects of a website are designed - this includes not just the
look and feel but also the usability of the site. The HTML and back
end database are engineered.

I could re-code the HTML for a site and it would still be the same
site, provided it was well coded in the first place. But if I
redesigned the interface it would be a different site.

Both design and engineering are important - but they're not the same.