At some point in nearly every project I’ve worked on we’ve developed templates. They’re a very common and often necessary deliverable. However, they’re also probably the single biggest factor in the homogenization of design for digital media, especially the web.
And a symptom of a profession that could use a bit of a kick in the pants.
Templates: The Good and The Bad.
We use templates to save time and money, to ensure adherence to standards, and to eliminate the need for extensive maintenance and testing. Templates allow non-designers and non-technical people to express themselves with out fear of breaking anything. All of these are good things. We need templates.
However, I also see templates as the representation of what’s wrong with design for digital media, in particular the web. They’re often cookie-cutter. They’re the reason why we’ve got so many sites using the “blog” look. Just look at all the Tumblr and Wordpress sites out there. Many of them look close to identical, with nothing more than a graphical skin to differentiate them. They convey a usable, accessible experience but they can’t always deliver a level of design, detail and engagement many sites could really benefit from.
They make things almost too easy.
I’m not against templates. Again, I see them as necessary, I use templates. I’m as guilty as anyone of taking advantage of what they have to offer. However I’ve also been thinking of ways we can decrease our reliance on templates so we can offer more complete, diverse and engaging experiences.
Designing a shift in how we do things.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit and while I don’t have many answers, and more and more questions, I do have a few things I’d like to see in 2008:
- More focus on art direction and narrative, especially for non-Flash sites that warrant it. Khoi Vinh recently wrote about this and he makes a great point. He says, ”…there is a tremendous amount of storytelling that needs to be told in digital media, too, and a tremendous amount to be recovered from the craft of art direction, a discipline that is seemingly stranded in the analog world.” This point is driven home by the impact art direction has on his (and Liz Danzico’s) very engaging A Brief Message project. We could use more of this in general and I can think of quite a few web sites, and maybe a few web applications, out there that could shift their focus a bit more towards a narrative, story-telling experience without damaging the behavior of their sites, for an overall more compelling experience.
- More educational content for web professionals that focuses on design theory and strategy and less on technique and technology. I realize a solid understanding of technology is key to any web professional’s career, I’m just hoping as the tech gets better and design becomes easier to implement we can shift that focus away from things like CSS and more towards design; visual design, typography, art direction, problem-solving, telling stories, etc.
- More time for design. (More attention to detail.) We often work with clients who don’t have the time and/or the budget to spend working out the details that really make a project shine. For us, the problem usually boils down to time as I’m often willing to resource my own design resources “for free” to make sure we’re delivering something we’re proud of. Great design, especially the kind we’re talking about here, takes time and effort. We do our best, but when we’re limited due to time or budget constraints to delivering templates (often times templates that don’t even represent the whole range of pages for a site, let alone variations on those pages) we’re essentially handcuffed. We’re constantly looking for ways to have more time for the important things, which brings me to…
- More consistent browser support. This almost goes without saying, but if we didn’t have to spend so much time squashing browser bugs (etc.) we’d have much more time to spend on what matters; designing amazing experiences. One of the best (and longest running) arguments for the use of Flash is that it allows a designer to design without the fear of a hassle with browser incompatibilities. It allows more time to design.
- More efficient technology, specifically content management systems with better support for multiple page layouts and easier ways to implement design. At Blue Flavor we work with a few CMS options (Expression Engine, Drupal, Movable Type, etc.) but are working on a CMS “framework” that will allow us to quickly build out more custom solutions. One of the benefits I hope we can work out with that is support for more varied and customized layouts. I highly doubt we’ll be rid of templates completely, especially for our clients with little to no design support or budget for art direction, but at least we can try and offer some more options, and maybe make it easier on those who do have that design support (and make it easier on ourselves at the same time.)
- Higher design standards for digital media. This one is a bit tricky, but I often hear the “industry standard” for web, mobile and interaction design being described with words like “accessible”, “usable” and even “standards compliant”. All of these are great things, however, they should be minimum designs should be shooting for. All designs should be usable and accessible and standards compliant. See my post on great design for more
I don’t think we’ll ever be completely rid of templates, nor should we be. However, we need to find ways to make technology work for us so we can focus on design; solving problems, telling stories and creating great things. It might be a while in coming, but I think we’re just starting to see the beginning of a shift in how we design for digital media that could really change what we’re able to do and how we go about doing it.
If I fully understand what you’re getting at, basically we need to look for “CMS” systems that only hold the data we wish to present. Those “CMS” systems would then simply allow us to call that data with specific tags or code (or widgets if you want to go that far). Keeping all the data modular would then allow us to place it in a template or content specific page.
Sounds a lot like what EE offers (from my limited experience with it), are you suggesting/looking for something different than that? If so, how are you looking for it to differ?
I agree 100% I can’t stand all the articles about how to become standards compliant, or how to make your CSS cleaner. I know that these are important subjects, however they take way too much presence over articles related to concept development, and art direction. I think that is why all we see on the web currently is the same shiny buttons, and 45 degree angled lines for background images.
Postmodern designers user to blame modernism for boringness. I now blame technology and the ease of entry into our profession.
Mike - Way to take a very developer-centered view of the issue. Nice one. To be honest I don’t really care much how it’s done, or what tool does it. :) I love EE. I love the stuff Jeff is doing with Django. I even like some of the options with MT.
(I’d like to avoid an EE vs. Django vs. Wordpress debate here, this is about enabling design and a discussion of technology would defeat the purpose of the post in many ways.)
We’re pretty much a “best tool for the job” shop and we try to stay technologically agnostic.
What I want to be different is the ability to easier implement diverse design solutions across one CMS install without having to create a hundred templates.
I’ve had this idea for a few years now of having a “framework” for rolling out custom CMS deployments. We’re working on something based in Django that does that. We’ll still use MT and EE and maybe even Drupal if it makes sense. But, again, that’s a topic for another post.
I honestly have not worked with any of the open source CMS frameworks out there, but my full time employer has a CMS called Titan CMS that utilizes .net and XML with XSL to spit out XHTML prettied up with CSS to make our clients pages… I’m one of the designers on the front end side for it and its actually pretty cool. Its based on what we call blocks; say a FAQ block, a search results block, or a freeform block that lets you do anything in it (raw xhtml, etc.)… We really dont have templates per say, but we have an .ascx file that contains divs with cms content in them. Our css then styles these files, which is just the raw content, and makes it look pretty.
It seems pretty flexible, we have done anything our clients have wanted, and it can be designed in any way you can think of… If this is like any other CMS out there, let me know; This is the first one I have worked with, and I dont want to be preaching something thats already known.. lol.
I can’t agree with you more Keith. There’s a definite need (and a place) for templates, but their overuse and the overabundance of them across the net has had a crippling effect on web-focused design.
As an industry, it’s very evident that there is a lot we could learn from the things that make traditional print-based design “work” along with the rich narratives (as Khoi mentioned) typically found in Flash-based sites such as those for big budget movies or as part of marketing campaigns for major brands.
Templates have probably also hurt web designers on a more basic level because they essentially lower the barrier for entry.
Anyone can design a simple template-based site with little know-how. Is it design? Probably not. Is it easy and reasonably quick to do? Usually. Easy and reasonably fast likely also equals low cost, which in turn hurts us because it sets often unreasonable expectations for what our work is truly worth. It certainly doesn’t make justifying the true time and costs associated with real strategic design any easier..
Templates render HTML.
If you want to solve design problems in a page using templates, then adjust or write custom CSS!
Isn’t that the whole point behind CSSZenGarden: One-way HTML output with vastly different CSS applied?
Apply the same principle to your templating.
Nice point Keith. Actually, i think it’s true that templates have been used too much to present similar design solutions. Maybe the problem are not templates, but using the same ones or very similar ones in a massive way. The classic scheme: header, main div for contents, menubar, sidebar, footer. You can decline this in different ways (two columns, three columns, fluid, fixed, etc.) but the user experience you’ll get is still the same. I think Khoi got to the point talking of narrative aspects of the problem: we definitely need stories on our websites. Stories means different interactions, depending on the website nature. If you think about it and consider also Donald Norman’s books, it is something that happens since the early days of interaction design for objects.
Shaun - I get the idea, if only it were that simple. Sometimes you need to alter markup, sometimes having multiple styles is problematic due to the browser problem. But, yes, CSS can help. The problem isn’t really templates - it’s more template mentality.
Mirko - You’re right, the problem here isn’t really templates, it’s more about the way we look at and approach design. In hindsight in using templates as a “hook” to bring y’all into a bigger problem I may have confused the issue. Oh well, I’ll be exploring this topic in much greater detail as the year goes on.
I don’t think you can blame cookie-cutter design on templates. I know you’re not blaming them at all, I’m just following the thought from Khoi to you to my brain. Bear with me. :)
Designers have always had design systems for big multi-part projects (books, magazines, annual reports, etc.). But the reason so many magazines look the same isn’t because they’re using InDesign stylesheets, it’s because the design is boring and derivative to begin with. The majority of design in *any media is bound to be mediocre, and the Web is one of the least mature and the most impacted by changeable technical limitations.
The body of content on the Web just tends toward the informational, which benefits more from design systems, and is less conducive to the one-off stuff, like concert posters and “rich media interactive Flash brand experiences”. Just because a design system imposes an internal consistency, doesn’t mean that it needs to be externally similar to anything else.
The technological landscape of the Web makes us focus on the execution, because the way we build what we design is important and always changing. In that situation, and with a deadline breathing down your neck, it’s a lot easier to execute something that you know is going to work, because it’s been proven.
You’re always going to have “practical” informational designs like annual reports and corporate websites that are at best elegant executions of proven techniques and at worst boring, derivative or just plain ugly. And you’re always going to have “experimental” one-off designs like concert posters and Flash portfolio sites. The interesting territory to me is where those two forms are integrated in a single project (feature spreads within a magazine, book covers, interactive features on a news site, etc.). I think that’s the interesting territory on the web, too. And it’s fertile and active. Right now.
Wilson - good points. I think where I started with this was me thinking about how easy the barrier for entry is and how there is so much focus on “how to do things” with CSS, etc. and not so much on “what you should do” or “what you can do.”
Templates kind of formed in my mind as a symbol of what is wrong, to me anyway, with design.
But you’re right, templates aren’t really the problem, although they don’t help anything either. :)
And I totally agree with you about where the two forms merge, that is where I can see a lot of great design work being done. I mean, as I mentioned, there are a whole lot of projects that are just fine with “templated design” we, as designers, just need to see where those projects could benefit from something more and I think lots of folks either aren’t looking at all, don’t know how to look or don’t know how to get beyond what they know.
If that makes sense? I’m really sick right now, feeling kind of loopy, so…if not…oh well. :)
I was going to make one of Wilson’s points — that designers in all mediums have design systems (templates, frameworks, whatever you want to call them), and they don’t seem to limit creativity nearly as in other mediums as they do in web design.
And while I know this post is about design, there are some technology problems at play here. The fact is, there aren’t many template languages designed by designers, for designers. Most developers don’t really “get” the problems we face, because they don’t think like designers. And yet, they’re the ones writing the template languages. Recently, there has been some movement on the technology side towards making better code tools for designers. I see the Django template language as a huge step forward — and apparently someone else did, too, since it was ported to Ruby on Rails (on RoR, it’s called “Liquid”). Also, I think some of the CSS frameworks out there do a great job of helping designers quickly do more interesting things, within the context of their system/template/style guide/whatever you want to call it. So, I think there are still some technological limitations hurting us, but the situation is improving.
Also, there is the timeliness factor. The single biggest reason really, really great editorial design is largely missing from the web is that content is expected to be posted right now. There’s simply not time for a designer to art direct. If a big story hits, your daily paper gets 8, 16 maybe 20 hours to build a layout for it. Your daily paper’s web team is risking their jobs if it takes them more than 15 minutes.
But, the biggest problem is, quite frankly, that many web designers aren’t really designers. They’re code geeks who have gotten into web design, without taking the time to really understand what design is all about. I don’t think you need to be traditionally-trained to be a great designer (I’m not!), but I do think you need to study the medium of graphic design and gain a solid understanding of what it’s all about, why it exist, what its purpose is, and its basic principles (layout, typography, color, etc.) before you are going to be able to succeed at the level you and Khoi are talking about. The bottom line is, most of the people working on the web today don’t have this understanding. And that is the biggest problem with design on the Internet today.
The problem is that all of our clients have a certain budget, and when the website is done, that budget is used.
There are three kinds of sites that we build with our web design company (informative, web2.0 and webapp). Neither of the clients who ask us to build their websites have budgets to maintain their website, design-wise, after we deliver the website.
Sometimes they have a person who maintains the site, who (in the best case) can write a bit of HTML and can write interesting copy. But it takes a silver bird to be a webmaster that is highly skilled in Javascript, CSS, HTML, writing and graphic design.
Maintaining websites is often an afterthought, for most companies it’s a big feat to have a website , let alone maintain it.
Keith nails it with the problem is the “template mentality” not templates themselves. People need to understand they are a STARTING point, not an END point. And the misunderstanding stems primarily, in my opinion, with what Jeff pointed out in this discussion: many web designers aren’t actually “designers.” Therefore, the template becomes the end point instead of a canvas to which you can manipulate at will (while abiding by universal graphic design principles).
Simple mantra: START with a template. END with a website.
But, the biggest problem is, quite frankly, that many web designers aren’t really designers. They’re code geeks who have gotten into web design, without taking the time to really understand what design is all about. I don’t think you need to be traditionally-trained to be a great designer (I’m not!), but I do think you need to study the medium of graphic design and gain a solid understanding of what it’s all about, why it exist, what its purpose is, and its basic principles (layout, typography, color, etc.) before you are going to be able to succeed at the level you and Khoi are talking about. The bottom line is, most of the people working on the web today don’t have this understanding. And that is the biggest problem with design on the Internet today.
^^^^^ Jeff, I don’t know if you could be more right. I have had the unfortunate experience of working with the people you describe as a superior. Needless to say that only last about a week before I began looking for a new position. It was unfortunate but taught me a very good lesson. There a number of people out there in our profession acting as web designers and seeing themselves as just that. These people for the most part are blissfully unaware of their deficiencies, and unfortunately probably won’t ever get it.
It is mostly unfortunate for their clients who pay for work that does not accurately meet their needs. I think that it is going to take some time for people to realize this, and until then these “designers” will continue to profit as the expense of their clients. It’s an expensive learning environment, however professionals who do understand the media and design itself will begin to reap the benefits as more clients become aware.
A bit of a rant, but I think I got my point across…