Hello, world!

Imagine a desk full of pens that all look the same. The only issue with all of the pens in this desk is the fact that some of the pens write like pens, others write like pencils, and some write like crayons.

As simple as it may seem, design goes a long way in determining how we, as humans, interact with symbols or objects.

That's what one of my majors, web design, is all about: giving an inanimate object a certain look and feel for users to interact with. 

After all, computers aren't natural: humans aren't born with an instinctive ability to just walk up to an electronic device and inherently know that in order to use it. How would anyone know that devices need to have power, and more importantly, how would someone who has no knowledge of electronics know there is a certain way to interact with it?

Enter design, and not just any design, but good design. Back when then Internet was first becoming publicly available, there were sites like CERN's, and many more. But even with basic HTML (webpage) formatting, these sites are able to convey meaning to users. For instance, on CERN's early site, most of the page is simple text... and then there are these random blue words on the page. What? Why would words randomly be different colors, and why would they be underlined? It's all because of design: the differently colored elements draw attention and let users know how to interact with themselves.

But these design strategies didn't always work. In fact, there were (and still are) classes teaching people how to use the Internet. The only problem with teaching a class on how to use the Internet is that if the class is being taught on the Internet, how can people be expected to use it?

So... if there are good website designs, are there bad ones? Hello, yes. There are actually websites dedicated to the worst websites in existence. 

Essentially, bad web design practices are the number one reason I am pursuing my majors. I know that bad design can never be completely removed from the Internet, but with enough work, I know it is possible to make tools and content management systems that teach users how to properly create websites.

But why does bad design matter? Why should anybody care if there are people with old sites out there that are hard to use? 
Unfortunately, to me, there is no black and white answer. But if there are individuals who make one bad site, and then help a friend make a site, who helps make another friend make a site, pretty soon there are hundreds of thousands of websites with bright-lime-green font over a white background, or even worse, a white font on a white background, while site visitors are having seizures because of the bright colors.
Of course, my example is a bit of a long shot, but I've seen too many sites like my example to not care.

With time, web designers will increasingly emerge from school with their toolbelts of good design, but for now, we'll just have to keep working at making the web a better place.