Why Web Design is Needless (And Good GUIs Aren't)

Nearly all web sites have a web design. But web design is essentially needless.

Web design does not define the web site. The content defines the web site.

If you are unsure about this, ask yourself:

The answer to these questions is the answer to the question whether web design is needless or not.

Web design is replaceable. The content is not. High Definition Television is replaceable. The film will not become worse if you take the HDTV away. The tennis court's surface is replaceable. The match will never become worse if you change the surface.

Web design looks different in different browsers; users of Lynx or elinks can only see the content – this is not a loss. Web design is unimportant. Many web sites with a good web design have bad content. And this is a loss.

One could think, I consider GUIs to be unnecessary. This is wrong.

  1. GUIs make usability possible. Usability without GUIs is difficult (for the end-user, the command line is still difficult to understand), but there can be usability without web design.
  2. Web sites without web design can implement GUIs, you do not need web design for that.

It was probably the GUIs, that made the victory of computers possible.

But the Internet won when there was no bloat-web-bloat-design. If no web site had web design, nobody would notice. Web sites can be used without any design.

You are still unsure? Ask yourself what is worse:

  1. Web sites without any design
  2. Web sites without any content

This should be obvious.