To answer your question, "Yes." Fuck Off Design is the most prevalent form of design out there today. Plenty of Information Architects practice it. Every time I encounter a site using a locked typeface, indiscriminately launching links into new windows, or using grey text on a white background, I flip the bird and say "Fuck You Too Buddy!"

Posted by: Ladybird Johnson on February 13, 2003 11:30 PM

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To answer your question, "Yes." Fuck Off Design is the most prevalent form of design out there today. Plenty of Information Architects practice it. Every time I encounter a site using a locked typeface, indiscriminately launching links into new windows, or using grey text on a white background, I flip the bird and say "Fuck You Too Buddy!"

Posted by: Ladybird Johnson on February 13, 2003 11:30 PM

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"indiscriminately launching links into new windows": It does have its place, you know.

You seem pretty reactionary and full of anger.

Posted by: Adam on February 13, 2003 11:56 PM

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"locked typeface"

Stop using a busted-ass browser. Tell the browser vendor to fuck off. You have only yourself to blame if the tool you use is broken.

Posted by: Eric on February 14, 2003 12:24 AM

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Eric, yeah, silly me, using a browser that 98% of the rest of the world also uses. No, I don't think so. I blame the designer. The bird stands.

Adam, I've lurked long enough to know you're the King Of Reaction. Everything has its place. No duh. And there are designers who launch every external link into a new window out of arrogance. It happens.

Posted by: Ladybird Johnson on February 14, 2003 12:29 AM

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Ohhh, wait a minute. I get you Eric. Everyone who uses Internet Explorer and other browsers that can't resize your typeface are using "busted-ass browsers." We're the problem, not you. You're saying "Fuck Off" to your site visitors. OK, nevermind. Resume your activities.

Adam, saying "Fuck You Buddy" (not in response to anyone else's post, mind you) is not reactionary given the topic of this thread.

Posted by: Ladybird Johnson on February 14, 2003 12:33 AM

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Do I get a crown with that?

Posted by: Adam on February 14, 2003 01:58 AM

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Here you go.

Posted by: Ladybird on February 14, 2003 02:02 AM

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Hmm. Not quite my style; thanks, anyway.

Weirdly enough for a pinko commie like me, this one's mine.

7th PSYOP, hooAH!

Posted by: Adam on February 14, 2003 04:27 AM

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Is that Tiny Lister in that picture? I bet he can get away with doing whatever he wants to users :>

Posted by: anode on February 14, 2003 09:50 AM

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Is this really 2003?

Do people really have that attitude?

Unfortunately yes.

I guess some of the more fashionable types out there really don't care if they offend people who are not 'up to their standards', whatever those may be.

I thought - foolishly - that companies were beginning to take on a more inclusive approach to web design, by accommodating people who they previously would have shut out through ignorance. Now there's no excuse.

Posted by: Ian Lloyd on February 14, 2003 11:12 AM

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"Ohhh, wait a minute. I get you Eric. Everyone who uses Internet Explorer and other browsers that can't resize your typeface are using "busted-ass browsers." We're the problem, not you."

No, I am saying your anger is misdirected. Blame MS for promulgating a busted browser, get on their back, they are the problem, not you, not the site designers.

Realistically, which would be easier: getting MS to change their browser, or getting umpteen millions of designers to change their sites?

Cynically, even easier would be to sit on the sidelines and be a drama queen, more interested in making a noise and gaining attention than actually making the world a better place.

/plonk

Posted by: Eric on February 16, 2003 12:11 AM

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Eric, I have to disagree. You said, "You have only yourself to blame..." It sounds like you are blaming the user for existing in this universe. Why not design for real users instead of ignoring reality, that they use Internet Explorer and cannot resize your typeface?

Posted by: Jim on February 16, 2003 12:48 AM

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"Blame MS for promulgating a busted browser"
Microsoft is actually in the right for once - if a site specifies type size in pixels, it displays it in pixels, as it should. The fault lies with designers using inappropriate units.

Now, you can argue that MS should respond to this by overriding pixel values, as they've done with Mac IE5, but in my view it's important to retain absolute control over text size for certain circumstances. As long as images are sized in pixels it's important to be able to do the same with text, if the browser can override then it becomes impossible to match text to images without resorting to JavaScript bodges.

As for the original quote, well I think Alex Michael was probably trying to be a little provocative and play to a particular segment of the design community, that sort of thing can be found in pretty much every issue of Cre@te Online. Such sentiments have some truth at their core, sites need to focus on their target users (that sometimes won't even be the majority of visitors), but in my view it's most often used as a smokescreen for problems with the site.

Other excuses to look out for:
"We wanted to offer a richer browsing experience"
= "Launch it in a full-screen popup window so it looks more like the client presentation, and get rid of the browser controls so noone notices the Back button doesn't work"
"It's important to bring skills from other media to the web"
= "A couple of people here used to work in TV, and none of us really like the web very much, so we bought a video camera"
"It's a playful interface, with a site structure designed to be explored"
= "No, we can't find anything either, but look at how the logo morphs into a dropdown menu!"

and the no.1 excuse I hear all the time:
"It's targetted at broadband users"
= "That Flash movie's ****ing enormous, but it's too late to change anything now, the client's seen it"

Posted by: Matt Round on February 16, 2003 04:17 PM

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Damn Matt -- you're obviously an old hand at this interwebby design thing. I have personally heard every one of your "Other excuses to look out for" used by designers. Each one is a "Fuck the Client" classic...

And don't forget:

"After careful audience analysis, we've focussed our effort on the primary audience group"
= "We couldn't be bothered testing it on Mozilla, but we can absolutely guarantee it looks HOT on Mac IE5, coz that's what we use."

"We've taken a pragmatic approach to standards compliant markup"
= "We marked everthing up in TABLE and FONT tags, but used CSS to hide the underlines on all the links."

Posted by: Che Tamahori on February 16, 2003 08:58 PM

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