What is most important Design or Design?

or when you cannot see the trees because of the wood

I often hear that design isn´t as important on Intranet as on external websites. I sometimes seriously think these people must have misunderstood the essence and function of good design. Or do we not speak about the same thing?

Good design helps the eye to find what´s important on a web page no matter what content there is. Of course the tools needed for creating an efficient intranet has to be working great. Interaction design has to be great too. But what if a dominant header with a lots of happy employers or even worse - totally irrelevant things - removes the focus of the work that has to be done.

Perhaps the different blocks of information compete too much making no one finding anything. Banners for example are very often taken for illustrations without any function. Sometimes too much and compressed information makes a visible hell for the eye. It has it´s own work to be done - to find what's important.

Perhaps link coloring scheme doesn´t make sence. Perhaps <H> titles is used as links making hardly no one understanding they are clickable.

I think a webpage's typography and graphical design are equally important on the inside as on the outside regarding functional design. But perhaps not regarding seducing the eye design and attract new visitors design. But bad graphical design can contradict a perfectly done workplace with a swell tools.

For those who do not understand....watch the simple examples below.

The top example is perhaps suffering from "over-design disease". The second is example is more plain. But they works for a discussion. Try to find the top navigation bar and try to guess where the post date is placed in both examples.

The background on top sucks so much energy that the top navigation bar is almost invisible. For real you cannot even read the text. A plain background stripe just behind the top navigation bar might have rescued it a bit. But since the placement of the Twitter bubble and the contrast of it makes it a bit messy this design is doomed to death. They eye need structure, lines, balanced colours and balanced contrasts to feel comfortable.

The examples is not an Intranet workplace but why should´t Intranet workplaces with even more information at the same spot not follow the same rules. I cannot get it!

Graphical design and typography is the science of "visual ergonomic". It enhances the interaction design and leads the eye to the important stuff at a web page. if it also make people feel comfortable with what they see - why neglect that just because it is an Intranet page? I cannot get it!

I sometimes think this misunderstanding is created by the technicians creating the stuff at the Intranet workplace. Most of them do not know much about design and they have to "produce". But I think everyone working with web interfaces must have basic skills in functional graphical design. Like colour schemes, contrasts, placement of information blocks like text, gadgets and banners, typography and some about image and text. Or else the eye get lost.

Then you cannot see the wood because of the trees... 
or to be more precise  - you cannot see the trees because of the wood!

What do you think?

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It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it