Question Patrick Lynch states "Most of what you need to know about to create a high-quality Web site has been in the Chicago Manual of Style for decades." For instance, in talking of current page layout conventions they say, "Our current page layout conventions have survived and evolved through centuries of natural selection that has weeded out the bad ideas and rewarded the useful ones. The best Web design "innovations" are simply careful adaptations of existing document conventions and genres, and thus it pays to respect the lessons of communications history." What are some document conventions or genre conventions that have survived the test of time only to be adapted for use in web-design? What do you think makes it adaptable? What might be some existing website examples of this genre/convention in practice?
Answer It's nice to wonder what websites could have looked like if they hadn't originated from printed texts. Because we all got used to and became comfortable with the way printed material is presented, we stopped looking for new ways to display commonly used conventions, such as menus, cover pages, copyright laws, indexes, and references. Because print is very rigid, websites have the upper hand in displaying information. Paper and digital conventions may look the same, but they function completely differently. Apart from the title, which appears on the front cover of a book and the front page of a website, all else is basically different. Both use pictures, but they're static in documents and dynamic on websites. This creates more appealing visuals. Both underline important information, but documents include footnotes while websites include links. Much neater and more appropriate for viewing when necessary. Both use menus, but in documents they're always visible, while in websites drop-down menus are only visible when scrolled over. The list goes on and on. While it's true that documents and websites have some conventions in common, their use is ultimately different. This difference arises from the flexibility offered by the digital world. These conventions may have survived because they are mostly based on common sense, something that naturally survives the test of time. When I pick a book, I want to see the title at the very beginning, that is the cover. The same applies to websites, but on the front page. This was common sense for Neanderthals (?) and will remain so whatever form Man takes in the future. When a word is underlined, it's for a reason. Documents include footnotes and websites links. All the conventions that survive the test of time are based on human nature rather than technology. Technology simply presents the convention in a different way.
One thing I noticed throughout the discussions is that no one commented on the following statement: "The best Web design "innovations" are simply careful adaptations of existing document conventions and genres, and thus it pays to respect the lessons of communications history." I don't know how this is. If that was true, what are we all doing in this course? Are our websites going to shadow someone else's work? Is it true that the best designers scaffold on their predecessors' creativity? And if this is the case, can we still call this creativity? If I take someone else's design, fiddle a bit with it, give it a twist here and a nudge there, and come up with a new design, is this creativity? This may be acceptable for novices or people still growing in this field. There's nothing wrong with following on the steps of previous experts, but that's just the learning stage. Otherwise, everything would look the same in centuries to come. For me, creativity is making something from nothing.