i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

As someone who has formal training in graphic design and experience working in the field with an eclectic mix of clients, I strongly believe in the importance of content, structure AND presentation. While I agree that there are times when presentation gets in the way of being able to understand the content, I have seen cases where the opposite is also true, and I believe that they must work together in order to communicate effectively and assist in information retrieval. 

Great design/presentation is successful when it is invisible, but that is also a double-edged sword. This causes many people to think that it doesn't matter what layout, color, typography, line spacing, and line length choices are made, but the reality is that designers have thought carefully about each decision. Whether the choices are made to align with an overall concept that applies to the content and design, or if the hierarchical design mimics the hierarchical importance of the content; all elements of the design are intentional when time and clients allow for it. Yes there is a lot of bad design out there because people don't understand the point, or only hire designers to 'make things pretty' based on a random aesthetic, but that doesn't negate design's potential. In fact it is a reason to heighten awareness of design. 

This article explains the potentially detrimental effects of taking shortcuts in design, especially when we assume that it's safe to copy the big names like Amazon and Facebook. I think it's particularly striking to consider how mimicking other designs inevitably causes you to inadvertently devalue the meaning of your data. Ultimately the goal of all visual language is to reinforce the message of the content.