A Dao of Web Design An Essay by John Allsopp alistapart.com What I sense is a real tension between the web as we know it, and the web as it would be. It’s the tension between an existing medium, the printed page, and its child, the web. And it’s time to really understand the relationship between the parent and the child, and to let the child go its own way in the world. Conventions of a mediumTo abandon controlThe journey begins by letting go Web History Chapter 6: Web Design wwwuxaccessibilitydesign
Useless work on useful things Anyone can verify by simple observation two important facts. The first is, that whenever humans design and make a useful thing they invariably expend a good deal of unnecessary and easily avoidable work on it which contributes nothing to its usefulness. The second fact is that all useful devices have got to do useless things which no one wants them to do. Who wants car to get hot? Or to wear out its tires? Or to make a noise and a smell? David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design The works of GodIf you have to do tedious workWe might as well make them beautifulAgainst form follows functionCombinations and arrangements function