Dustin Curtis

If you're not a designer, it might be hard to see, but the importance of this work is impossible to overstate. In 10 years, we'll look back on today and think about how barbaric and stupid it was that we didn't have re-flowable text in multi-box CSS layouts or absolute control of typefaces on the web.

I have come upon the edge of what CSS is capable of multiple times, especially when building http://dustincurtis.com, and what happened surprised me: after a while, I noticed that I had started to subconsciously alter my designs to fit within the limitations of the display technology. As I realized that the only sane way to build the layouts was to absolutely/manually position every paragraph, I slowly stopped writing and designing the articles. It was just too much work because the tools to do great custom layouts on the web just don't exist.

Compared to what should be possible by now, CSS is pretty primitive. It's a limiting factor in the digitization of traditional media, like magazines. What Adobe is doing here is awesome, and I commend them for pushing forward the status quo.

Just because he says

> Also, saying "You should move it to the Trash" is weirdly strong wording.

when he published a very influential write-up[1] of how he discovered that "you should follow me on Twitter" was the best text to use to actually get people to click the link and follow him. It's not unlikely that people implementing this UI were actually influenced by Dustin's original findings when choosing this wording.

So he may be calling his own idea "weirdly strong", which is how I always felt about his "you should follow me on Twitter" phrase (and the resulting explosion of it around the web). It's a meme come full-circle, and the father doesn't recognize it!

[1] http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html Dustin has clout in the web UI/UX/whatever designer blogo-webo-sphere.

He's a talented designer and a couple of his blog posts were relatively well talked about a few years back (eg: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html) and he capitalised on that. From what I understand of him he's not had any individual achievement that people care about but it's his ability to write with confidence that gives the impression he has a rich history of experience in all these many fields and so people choose to listen to him.

The site that he originally published articles through (http://www.dustincurtis.com) is worth a look just for the quality of the design. Probably his most effective post (the one that most people will have experienced the effects of) is this: http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html

While the big text and focus on content is great, I really think the two-column layout is a disservice to usability on the web. I get to the bottom of the page and am forced to scroll back an arbitrary amount 'til I find the header of the article and start over on the second column. Looks ok, but isn't that thought-through to me.

Some interesting design choices to be sure though. I honestly think what Dustin Curtis does with his site (http://dustincurtis.com) is a better testament to how to write and display articles on the web, though his site doesn't claim to be a "web magazine" (whatever that means).

A List Apart used to do it well too, but I find their articles quite stale nowadays.

While I applaud the effort, this seems like a very short-sighted project. Design is not about how things look, it's about how things work to advance a set of goals. And it's very difficult to know how things work without research and exploration. Any new design would start with reviewing stats, business goals and the competition. Projects that don't do that should more-aptly be called "re-colouring" or "moving things around to be pretty."

Incidentally, there was a designer who did a "redesign" of the American Airlines site a while back and ignited a fire store. The response from one of AA's designers is worth a read: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

It looks nice. It doesn't matter.

I'm not convinced that redesigns done in isolation are useful. As the AA designer's reply to dcurtis indicated [1]--in the prototypical example of this kind of stunt--the design can't operate in isolation from the structure and goals of the organization (even if those are dysfunctional).

These "blank page" redesigns disrespect the hard work these YC companies are doing A/B testing and talking to users to improve what really matters: conversions.

But they are great for self-promotion.

[1] http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html