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Slippery Soap

Garrett Dimon takes on the “design for design’s sake” approach to web sites and says:

On the web, precise control of how a design is experienced is a lot like squeezing a wet bar of soap. The more you tighten your grip, the more likely it is to fly out of your hands.

This may be the best summation of what is wrong with so-called “pixel perfect” design ideas I’ve ever read. The kind of sites Dimon takes to task are either Flash or image map driven, and they focus solely on the experience the designer/owner wants site visitors to have.

The better focus is on the kind of experience site visitors want to have. You know, the people who are on online because they don’t want a passive, tv-like experience, they want to do something.