Design has always played a critical role in the success of web sites but has only of late been really gaining its due recognition. The design of a site truly makes or breaks it. And clearly, people are starting to get that and understand that web usability has nothing to do with the users’ abilities; it has everything to do with the ability of the site to be usable by its intended users.

Scott Karp over at Publishing 2.0 recently wrote that “on the web, in the age of Google, design has no margin of error, and there are no stupid users, only inadequate designs” and that “the user experience is EVERYTHING”and that “users don’t care about the site’s goals. They care about THEIR OWN goals. …all that matters is whether the user succeeds”. It is truly the user revolution.

There have also been a lot of recent affirmations and validation of the fact that design is emerging as a key component to the success of any web site. Joshua Porter wrote a recent piece on The Growing Importance of Design in which he observes that design is becoming big news - whether it’s the design of social apps like Facebook’s Profile pages or MySpace redesign, Google’s new favicon, to Microsoft’s new OS Vista, or Apple’s latest OS, it’s being covered by the likes of NY Times, LA Times, ABC News, Washington Post, and others. Clearly, design has gone mainstream.

As a result, I think the timing of our upcoming event on June 25 on Web Usability is perfect and will allow us to examine this subject with a renewed and heightened focus. See you there!

(Image source: Sekar Saha)