It is What it is…
Being on the web so much, it’s a bit hard to avoid stumbling across articles regarding the ever-so-famous MySpace. Now there were two different ones that I came across, that could easily be two different posts, but I will try to limit it to one and simply address the matters and my own opinion on them.
As a design community, it is easy to rant and rave about how ugly MySpace is, and how poor people’s templates look, and yadda yadda. Yes we all know that it is one of the ugliest things to ever hit the web, however, there has got to be some reason why is has been one of the fastest growing sites in the history of the web.
Now I am not one to praise bad design, never, but I will give respect to success, and MySpace is just that. I am wrapping my head around the fact that not every successful site out there will look good. It’s as simple as that. So yes MySpace is ugly, however does this mean that it has a poor design? Hear me out first….
Design is not restricted to how “pretty” something looks, but rather it is how it functions, and how well it works with the users. With over 80 millions (and growing) users on the site, would you say that it is a successful design? Again, I am not praising ugly websites what-so-ever. What I am trying to do is separate the visual look of the site, from functionality. And yes the functionality isn’t perfect, but it obviously working well for, um, about 80 million registered users.
Why did it succeed? Well, everyone should be over the fact that MySpace did not succeed because of it’s looks, however, it did succeed because it allow the users to customize their own pages. It allows users to have their pages be an extension of their personality, and use the site as a social meeting ground. That’s what MySpace is, and does. It gets the job done, simple as that.
With that said, what would we say if 95% of the users of MySpace simply don’t care about the design of the site, rather just want their information and pages to “look cool?” What if they don’t see the things that we do, and they think it’s a great site, then who are we to say that the site doesn’t work well? Am I out of my mind?
I’d like to hear other opinions.
4 Comments
A site like myspace is really difficult to put a finger on. It seems to defy many general rules of design but never-the-less remains hugely popular. To answer your question no you’re not out of your mind. MySpace works not because of the visual design, nor even because of it’s flexible and growing functionality. It works because it was in the right place at the right time. The first big player of it’s kind. Unlike, say, geocities, myspace does not just to provide features for easy creation of websites or blogs; it also provides an easy linkage to other people of a similar nature, using the same system for the same purpose. You sign up to myspace and you no longer need to hunt for popularity – it comes to you. That is why MySpace works. Popularity is power.
I completely understand what you mean. But I was thinking more along the lines of whether the MySpace design (functionality from a user stand-point) was 100% bad? Now it obviously fails in the visual design category, but design isn’t all visual.
Very true. Good design takes many forms. The lads up at myspace HQ must be doing something right.
I’ve been asked a few times by friends who have MySpace pages to tweak something here, double-check functionality there, maybe do a template for them. The first two, I’ll do. But to do a template? No way. As much as John’s emphasized that MySpace is more than ugly sites–it’s still ugly, and the way those pages are required to be structured, I feel nauseous thinking about it. CSS allows me to do anything I want, within the limits of my skills, and MySpace limits me. In a bad way. In the end, my take on MySpace is that it’s an effective way for non-designers and those that aren’t totally web-saavy to communicate and maintain a web presence.