It wasn’t anyone’s conscious idea, but web design, whether anyone likes it or not, is now one of the primary forces in global culture. Whether it’s website templates, media, the forms that make up most of the world’s job applications, or the endless Tweets which make the world a noisier place, web design is behind all of it.
The cultural effects of web design
The good news, for just about everybody, is that web design, as both a science and an art, is now providing a lot more cultural exposure. This is happening automatically, for just about everyone on Earth. There are common threads in web design, but the design horizons are broadening, literally by the second, as new sites and developments expand the field exponentially.
Oddly enough, the exposure is happening more at mainstream level than at the ever-vague “cutting edge”, where the artists and innovators tend to congregate. Web design has literally brought the world into view in real time, and the old TV culture has simply evaporated.
The blogosphere is a bit prone to take credit for anything and everything to do with the web, but in practice the nuts and bolts, personal interest sites have actually done more. The hobbyist starts with a favorite topic and site, and within a few days is an expert at searching, using and navigating sites.
That has a lot to do with business, too. Business website templates are the other big factor in turning the web into everyone’s daily routine on a practical basis. The days of “techno fear” are long gone, and the fact that so many people now do business online has made the net culture the driving force in daily life.
The effect has been to broaden horizons, haphazardly, but across a range of areas where there were previously no horizons at all. The net has removed the middlemen in terms of “interpreter” media. If you want to check out something in China, India, or Guatemala, you no longer need to wait for some production company to do a documentary. The information is all there, all the time.
Web design is at the core of this gigantic change in fundamental human perspectives. Web design is about functionality, and making sites accessible to users. That function alone has done a lot to make sites accessible, even to people that don’t speak the languages of the sites.
Ironically, it’s the web template that’s largely responsible for this situation. People can navigate on sites pretty easily, and competent web designers have made the entire net a place that’s easy to use, thanks to a series of basic standards used in templates. You really don’t need to speak a language, or even have visited a site before, to find your way around.
The result is a type of international language. Social sites like Facebook are basically pretty simple designs, and the half billion people using Facebook didn’t need lessons in how to interact. They already knew. A culture which was literally non-existent a few years ago is now a common standard.
Whatever comes next, you can be absolutely sure that web design will have a role in creating it.
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