Pattern 16: Aesthetics *
AKA:

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You are designing the site and have developed a SITE MAP (12) and all the elements of the basic site structure. You want the site to be useful, usable, fast and sticky but also to look really good. But...

How does one now balance good graphic design with performance and usability? Appearance makes a lot of difference to a site BUT... pretty graphics can impede usability and performance.

Therefore

Learn design principles such as: few colours, golden section, perspective, etc. TESSELLATE GRAPHICS (54). Use graphics to reinforce the function of screen areas. Use NATURAL METAPHORS (56). Display CONTENT BEFORE GRAPHICS (55). Use WORDS BEFORE ICONS (57). Don’t let any one group within the team dominate the overall design.

You will also need to understand the USE OF COLOUR (53). ACCEPTABLE WORDING (50) is also part of the aesthetics of your site.

Discussion - forces - known uses
It is remarkable that the most liked features of a given GUI are often the aesthetic ones. One of the most popular innovations in windows systems, for example, was the 3D push button that appears to depress when clicked or held clicked. It apparently contributes nothing, but is loved by users to the extent of being a prerequisite for all such systems nowadays.

Many sites are developed by teams that include specialist graphics designers and marketing experts. These people often dominate the design process to the extent that the sites end up looking really pretty but their pages take far too long to download. The KISS (38) pattern is completely ignored.

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