Designing imperfection into websites
Here is an interesting article on the need to design imperfection into websites in order to make them more human and more accessible.
Elegant Web experiences walk a fine line separating simplicity (yawn) from chaos (huh?). And the rules that govern the quality of the attempt are derived from considerations of natural organization. This can still be elegant — as long as the chaos is modulated within a stable container, constrained by a well-designed illusion of natural order.
Great Web sites have feel — what Leonard Koren had called “heartfelt intelligence.”…Feel only comes about when you tear away the illusion of perfection.
Words are merely the leavings of our intellect, strung together into a story. The same goes for designed artifacts. The more imperfect the artifact, the more they tell of the passage of time, and the more human they become.
So a postulate I’d like to put forth is that when the proper amount of imperfection is present in a designed Web experience, it feels more human. A Web site that is more human becomes more useful, right? Here, we have to be careful. A web site is only more useful if it is elegant in its imperfection.
I don’t usually include this many quotes, but with this article, a precis does a much better job then I ever could.