More often then web designers would like to admit, we find ourselves falling victim to paying close attention to detail in hopes of achieving perfection. Perfection is a never ending illusion we all seek. At times we feel like we have reached our level of satisfaction, but soon find ourselves chasing something new trying to find what we are looking for.
Perfection is subjective.
For example, a professional can look at an amateur and see mediocre work, while the armature can look at a professional and see organized mediocre work. Too often we will tweak a few pixels trying to please everyone, but everyone views perfection differently.
We get so involved in trying to please everyone that we forget that there will be 33% of people who will like you, 33% of people who will not and 33% who will careless. Perfection is being able to ignore the ones who don’t like your work and convince the ones who careless to join the ones who do like it.
Perfection is meeting your goals.
In the past, I never used paperwork to define project goals, most of my projects would find themselves traveling the infinite loop highway to perfection. After I got a little dizzy, the first thing I started to do was define the goals upfront. Without predefined goals it gets too easy to get off focused worrying about new goals thinking they will help make things perfect; when really only offset goals causing the project to go past deadline.
I am just describing some past experiences I have had with personal projects; I get caught up on details more then I would like to admit. On a daily basis I have to remind myself that there is no such thing as a perfect web site and that I need to revisit my defined goals. When it comes time to launch, it doesn’t matter if it won the webby; it only matters if I delivered on time and on goal.
Perfection sets standards.
Perfection is the state which something is flawless; we improve our standards based of this concept. The standards we follow today have been controlled by the idea of having a perfect web, and as we all know there is no such thing. As we chase perfection, web standards help push web designers in the right direction; perfection gives us a purpose to improve.
Perfection to us can mean many things, but in the web design meeting standards is one of the many things that brings perfection closer. We look upon our own standards as a guideline to become more perfect.
What do you think?
I know that everyone has their own thoughts about what perfection is...perfection is subject as I mentioned above.
Do you think that the desire to chase the perfection illusion is what keeps us learning and improving our standards and own talent? Do you think that the there is such a thing as perfection in web design? Do you think that perfection gives progression purpose?
Until next time, follow me on twitter, @michaeldick