Part 5: CoronaScale
In scale, relationships matter. So does size, although bigger is not always better.
Scale is one of the fundamental tools a designer has to tell a visual story. It refers to the relative size of objects on a page whose physical relationship to one another indicates their importance,
instructing viewers which elements to view, in what order to view them, and what’s most important to focus on.
Part 4: CoronaUsability
For large websites, we conduct usability testing because the cost of launching a site on which many people will rely, is too high to leave to chance. In a typical website usability test, we will design a set of tasks the typical website user will need to conduct on the site, and we monitor every movement and click they make to ensure their experience is what we intended. We don’t launch the site until testing has been conducted and we’ve made the necessary changes based on the results. Occasionally, the fixes can delay the launch of the website, but it is rare that everyone involved does not support going to market with an unassailable product.
Part 3: CoronAlignment
We’ve lost alignment over social distancing and mask wearing
As designers, we always look to achieve balance, harmony and order in a layout so that our clients will focus on the message rather than mechanics of whatever communications we’re presenting. Letters and words are our bread and butter and making their message clear and compelling to everyone by applying best design practices is always the goal. Depending on our assignment, those best practices include employing any one of four common types of typographical alignment – left-aligned, right-aligned, centered, and justified. For the most part we don’t mix these alignments in a communication because that would confuse our audience, create dissonance and engender a lack of trust, which is why alignment is so important.
Part 2: CoronaBranding
It was a well-thought-out branding decision to call it ‘social distancing.’
That the world is living though a unique moment is the rare fact upon which we all agree. The Pandemic Through a Designer’s Eye is a five-part series that looks at the crisis of our lifetime as a design problem and shows how design principles are relevant to its resolution. Each article profiles a specific design tool in relation to our national crisis.
We are all unwitting participants of a giant experimental installation in a living museum of humanity, curated by the suddenly famous Dr. Fauci, who has provided us a teachable moment about, among other things, the principles of design to keep people healthy and save lives.
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