High Class and Low Class Web Design

Panel Link

Maybe there is a class system, or phenomenon at work in regards to the way sites are designed and their audience.

Good Design. Bad Design. Target. what is it really?

The first question for the panel is, do you design for yourself or do you design for your audience? All the panelists said they do design for the ausdience, but it comes with conditions. Is there an archetypical person for the design of NYTimes, or WWE materials?

–You know, I’m going to leave it at that. This panel was made up of distinguished and fascinating participants, but the conversation left a big piece of the puzzle unaccounted for: broadband adoption. High design sites, especially things like brand experiences, are almost all done as extremely rich flash sites. These sites are inherently out of reach for individuals with lower purchasing power and socio-economic status, as their weaker internet connections do not allow for such rich media.

This occured to me as I walked out of the panel. A shame I didn’t have the chance to jump on it with the group.