On the run up to Christmas, that wonderful annual advent calendar 24 Ways published an article called: How to make your site look half decent in half an hour . In some designer quarters, this was jumped upon as a load of unconsidered twaddle written by a developer who shouldn’t be dishing out design tips. Aral Balkan took this task and has written a great article that follows my thinking as to what ‘design’ is. All good. But, I’d like to comment on what I thought that 24 Ways article was about, and really the indication of a perception of design across web professionals.

For the past few years, I’ve been teaching a workshop based on my book, Designing for the web, to lots of web people, but mostly to developers, front-end devs, UX folk and project managers. All of them have come along to the workshop to learn just one thing:

‘How do I make this thing I’ve done look less shitty?’

Now, if you’ve read my book, or my blog for a while, you’ll know that I see design as a holistic practice; a practice of understanding content, of audience needs and goals, of brand, of psychology, and, of making things look less shitty. As much as designers would like to think we’re the guardians of all things considered practice, taste, and learned process. We’re really not. Some of the best designers i’ve worked with have embraced the passionate learning of students and amateurs. People who are not interested in becoming professional designers, but want just enough knowledge about an aspect of design to make their thing better: be it their resume, their website or their father’s cafe menu.

Getting stuck in

There is nothing wrong with getting stuck in. I’m not a carpenter, but I’ll get stuck in and learn and renovate my bathroom. I’m not a bike mechanic, but I’ll learn enough to maintain my road bike. I’m not a developer, but I’ll hack around with a bit of PHP to get to where I need to be. Many people would not class themselves as designers, but they can arm themselves with techniques to make themselves better at an aspect or technique of design.

There are many ways to Define The Damn Thing, but for me, design is really just the result of a bunch of questions and answers. These questions may be asked by the materials you’re working with, the constraints of the project, or the audience you’re designing for. They may be big questions such as ‘how can we increase quarterly revenue by redesigning this checkout procedure?’ Or, they may just be small questions like: ‘how can I make this content just look a little less shitty?’. These are both equally valid questions.

The answers to these questions are design. Some answers are big. Some are difficult. Some seem like magic. But most, in my experience, are well-trodden cowpaths of practiced techniques. Simple little things we do to make less shitty things.

So, design is veneer. But Aral is right, it’s not just veneer. Even if you wanted it to be, visual design is not a thing, and we should be mindful to not present it as such. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t help people who aren’t designers make less shitty things by giving them a few hints and tips along the way.