Opti-Cal/Mag Vegi Caps: Where has all the simplicity gone?

I was just sitting down to eat lunch when a bottle on the table caught my eye. It looked like one of those bottles for vitamin supplements, so I didn’t think too much of it. Until I turned it around and took a look at the name of the pills.

Opti-Cal/Mag Vegi Caps.

What. The. Heck?

I glanced around on the front of the pill bottle for a while before I realized I had no idea what these pills did. However, I did find out that these were extra strength and contained a ratio of 2:1 of something. The front was just littered wtih useless catch phrases and buzz words. It was only after reading the very fine print at the bottom of the label that I realized that they were Vitamin and Mineral supplements (the label also says “plus other factors” which could mean anything really). Then I realized that it was overly complicated for no reason. If I had seen these on a shelf at the store I probably wouldnt’ even have looked at it twice. I had no reason to. After all, I had no idea what they were, and by looking at them, I had no idea what they actually did. I suppose if I had a few minutes I could stop by and closely look at them, but I’m generally a busy person. If I can’t get something right away I move on to the next attainable task.

Web design has achieved this same idea of simplicity. With the advent of the internet we saw a push for spinny buttons and flashy text and the dreaded blink tag. It was a terrible time to be a designer. But then things started getting good. All of a sudden there was this new movement in web design dubbed Web 2.0. It touted simplicity and aesthetic design over flashy-spinny bits. People still needed flashy, but now that this had become an actual design form, people were a bit more picky about what they put in to their layouts. After all, it would represent their work on the internet.

I suppose it really was a good thing for us. It allowed us to focus less on where to put a piece of the layout, and more on where not to. We achieved a balanced web layout by placing overly design-laden areas next to sparse whitespace holes. We learned to appreciate the beauty of a simple gradual gradient as opposed to bright pink text. We moved on from integrating these design elements into integrating the code. And then designers had to become developers. We had to see what it is we were going to do with our layout and then learn how to do it. It helped a lot because now you were working with someone who not only saw your end result in their head, but they worked tirelessly to make it happen.

So why talk about all of this? Why understand where web design evolved from? Simple, to figure out where it will go next. I personally feel that “Web 3.0″ (for lack of a better term) will integrate developers and designers tighter. Our designs will be linked to the code, and we will try and use code to replace various images. I mean, if I could do it in 40 lines of code and have it reusable always, why would I make an image of each element?

But more than that, designers will have to focus on how elements on their designs will interact with the user. Will a form have a tool tip when you over over it? Will there be a customized radio button? Will the banner fade in and out with different images? All these ideas will have to be integrated into the designers repertoire as they no longer design layouts, but move on to developing web sites. No longer can a designer get by on being just a designer anymore. They will have to learn new skills so that they have even more to offer their clients.