zeldman: taking your talent to the web
May 18, 2001.
By Molly E. Holzschlag. (Link to original article.)
There are just certain personalities you want to root for. Really—think about the affinity you have for a favorite sports figure or actor.
In the Web world, Jeffrey Zeldman is a guy I root for.
Zeldman lets people have their own ideas. He'll tell you his, you'll express yours. You might passionately disagree. And you'll still leave the conversation thinking the world is a beautiful place.
Part the fibrous strands of today's Web and look to its center. I think at its core it's a place meant for people in all their ugliness and all their glory. It's about communications, and we all know that communicating effectively is extremely difficult.
Jeffrey Zeldman is a man with strong opinions and a real heart. He has the key awareness that Web designers are communicators. I've been waiting with anticipation for his new book Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer. I knew it was going to be different than anything I'd read-more communicative, funny, alive. And so it is. (Be sure to take a look at the sample chapter—downloadable from the bottom of the page—to experience it yourself.)
What's more—I asked Zeldman a few questions about the book, and about himself. Here's the way it went:
Molly: If a reader were to take three ideas away from your book, what would you hope them to be?
Zeldman: For the transitioning designer who reads this book:
- Understand this medium: the ways it differs completely from print, and the ways it is similar. Let go of certain long-cherished ideas (such as absolute visual control) and embark on a challenging voyage that will ultimately expand your understanding of what it means to design. The first part of the book explains all these concepts in detail. It is a pretty complete summation of how the medium works, including strengths and limitations, and the importance of key concepts like user flow and accessibility.
- Learn the full range of skills you need to design Web sites—from the cubicle to the conference room. The second part of the book explains the project life cycle, the roles of your teammates, and your role as a Web designer, and provides a capsule history of the medium to fully ground you. The third part of the book is nuts and bolts: your cubicle skills, from scripting to stylesheets, typography to plug-ins.
- Get ready for the ride of your life.
For the working Web designer who reads this book, the key ideas would be to expand your role. The Web is a group effort (like a movie) but you are not a technician or an extra. The entire site requires your expertise. Readers and visitors need what only you can bring. Master the entire process, from initial meeting to hand-off. Do not accept limits or impose them on yourself.
The way we design sites is changing in fundamental ways as Web technology matures and standardizes. Learn these new methods now and begin planning your transition from the hacked-together, browser-specific Web you know, to an emerging, multidimensional, accessible Web built on shared technological standards.
As vital as it is to bring maturity and thinking to the creation of professional, commercial sites, you might do your most important work after hours—by creating and maintaining independent sites. Sites with no client, no budget, and no deadlines. Sites based strictly on your talent and vision. They can bring you happiness. They can change the Web. They may even, in some small, positive way, change the world.
Molly: In terms of the chapter you've provided to WebReview.com, why did you choose it and what do you want people to take away from it?
Zeldman: I chose Chapter Three because it sketches a larger view of what it means to be a Web designer. As everyone knows, many specialized tasks and areas of expertise go into the practice of Web design: scripting, typography, graphic design, markup, style sheets, knowledge of browser and platform differences, and so on. But skillful Web design is more than the sum of these parts, and Chapter 3 is one of several places where the book examines this bigger picture.
Navigation and architecture are not simply structural issues, and not strictly the province of information designers and usability experts. When done right, navigation and architecture are keys to the site's concept. Designers can play an indispensable role in shaping both the concept and the architecture that expresses it.
Designers are communicators, possessed of an almost magical ability to express ideas at the multiple levels of the individual visual element, the overall page layout, and the narrative flow of visitor movement. Designers understand the emotions that can be stirred by the journey through the site. No other professional involved in Web development is going to approach it in quite that way. Just as good writers involved in film or multimedia projects think beyond words, good Web designers are always thinking of overall branding and site experience—thinking beyond buttons and colors and typefaces.
Spurred by rapid growth, Web development has become more and more specialized. This has many good points, of course, but it can also lead to an unfortunate mindset where designers are pigeonholed as decorators who make pretty buttons, or as "those tattooed freaks who do that wacky Flash stuff." Chapter 3 (and other parts of the book) remind designers of their special gifts and of how those gifts and insights may be applied to the entire site creation process. Hopefully Chapter 3 and other sections like it will also remind clients, CEOs, and project managers of the value designers bring to the site as a whole, making it a bit easier for Web designers to do their jobs—their entire jobs.
Molly: You've been a visible participant and outspoken party on the Web for years. How does this visibility affect your life personally and professionally?
Zeldman: The great thing about the Web is that anyone with the desire to do so can participate actively in the community, design, or technological issues that interest them. This is not limited to Web designers or even Web professionals. At every level of Web creation, you'll find people who are passionately engaged in what they do—from the authors of personal poetry sites, to people who build small, noncommercial communities; from designers who create experimental spaces for their own visual pleasure and the sake of exploration, to those charged with shaping the standards on which the medium will be based. As you work, you keep meeting these people you would never otherwise have the pleasure to know.
I'm lucky in that, from the very beginning, one of my greatest interests has been seizing the opportunity the Web provides to develop independent, noncommercial content and design. This obsession has led me to publish work I would never otherwise have conceived of creating (and would never have been able to produce in any other medium). In turn this has introduced me to thousands of people over the years, and that is the great gift in my life.
Yesterday I met a father and son who both run personal sites. The son is ten years old, and already clearly gifted. A few hours later I was talking with one of the creators of CSS, who has become a friend. Day and night, online or in person, I get to meet people and exchange real communication. To me this connection between people is spiritual. When my mother died last year, Dreamless (a virtual design community) held a moment of silence in her honor, and literally thousands of people sent me personal letters. Some even sent flowers to my father, without ever having met him. They felt they knew him through me.
To me this is the most incredible thing about the Web, and it is available to anyone who becomes involved in the medium—an opportunity that is open to all.
Then too, in 1998, after muddling through for three years, I was introduced to the concept and importance of Web standards (see sidebar and related article links), and was able to help found a group that advocates their wider adoption. We do this because W3C is not a lobbying organization, and because, when we started, support for standards in browsers was not what it should have been.
I do not wish to overstate our achievements, but I think in some small way we have had a positive effect in helping to bring sanity to this medium. This is all the more amazing considering that, when we started, the overriding mentality in the business was "get it done any way you have to, make a buck, and move on." I'm proud of what we've done and grateful for the opportunity to have met many hard-working and often brilliant people through these efforts.
I've been asked to speak at Web gatherings from Istanbul to Austin, Stockholm to Santa Fe. I was asked to write this book. I don't seek out clients—they find me. I'm not bragging. I don't deserve these things. I'm blessed. Blessed by the Web. I'm not the only one, and the gates are wide open if you're willing to work and seek.
About the book
Download the sample chapter. PDF format, 1.19MB.
Title: Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer.
Author: Jeffrey Zeldman.
Publisher: New Riders.
ISBN: 0735710732
Price (US): $40.00.
Pages: 448.
Zeldman resources
alistapart.com: A List Apart, one of the finest Web design e-zines.
webstandards.org: The Web Standards Project (WaSP).
zeldman.com: Zeldman's personal site.
