Design Through The Years – Pretty Vs. Usable – Form Over Function

Allison King

Anyone remember the crazy websites we used to make in the early days of the internet? My first websites were full of different blocks of colored text and as many animated images of kittens and unicorns as I could find. I may have thought it was pretty (it wasn't), but it certainly wasn't functional. There was no way anyone visiting my site could easily navigate it or probably even figure out what it was about.

Now that I know more about website design, I've left the kitty animations behind. I've made sure that the websites I build are contemporary, pertain to my brand, and most importantly, functional for all my site visitors.

When using Luminate Online to create web pages, do you focus on the content only or do you also consider the look and overall website usability? Blackbaud University has combined industry best practices and tips for effective website design in one class, Organizational Best Practices: Marketing—Website Usability. If you need help learning how to create web pages, check out Luminate Online: Surveys and Web Pages. And for more advanced web designers, we also offer Luminate Online: S-Tags and Page Wrappers.

Just for fun: If you also had a crazy website back in the day, leave a comment describing it as best you can.

Kathryn Hall

OMG. Love this. Through the wonders of technology, you can still see one of my first websites on the Wayback Machine, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20020204124544/http://www.healthyfamilychiro.com/index.htm - the wave, the sunset, this website Has. Got. It. Going. ON! :-) 

Karen Cincotti

I would love my developer to take those two classes, however the prerequisites are such that it is not really possible. He does not need to take all of the Luminate fundamentals curriculum if he is never doing reports, or queries, team raiser set ups, etc. It would be great if there was a training path for the different paths.