Everyone has heard the term "cutting edge" applied to something that they or someone else has found online. Webster's Dictionary defines cutting edge as being
1. An effective quality or
element. 2. The position of greatest advancement or
importance.
When we hear of the cutting edge we conjure up visions of fresh, new technology as well as brilliant and original ideas. To be on the cutting edge is to be at the forefront of all that is new--and we are used to thinking that new things are great.
Web design, like any other media, is driven by the people who do things first. When a amazing new trend comes along there is a designer at its root who did it first. When the web undergoes a startling change in direction there is a designer who wasn't afraid to take a chance on something untried. At least this is how we would like to see things.
No doubt there have been many innovations in design which came about as a result of designers, but there is another side to the innovation arena, one which is usually far removed from we soldiers in the trenches. This other reality is that many of the best and worst trends in web design have come about thanks to the competition between the creators of the two largest browsers: Netscape and Microsoft. In their wars against one another each company has striven to increase its hallowed market share by introducing new features and tags into its browsers that will draw designers and users alike to them and away from their nemesis. The product of this grudge match is a Word Wide Web, that over the years, has been full of pages that cannot be viewed unless you have the same browser as the designer who created the site. For many years this was the battleground, though many skirmishes were fought by the creators of various plugins. In recent years, though, several new players have entered the game.
Because of advances in server technology, browser technology, and the integration of different systems together it has become possible to create more and more powerful pages for the web, pages that transcended the site to become applications. All in all this has not been a bad thing, although once again that bastion of standards bashing, Microsoft, has tried to use their weight to destroy their competition through monopolistic leveraging. More powerful web sites have been to many people's advantage, including those who wish to do business on the web, which in turn has helped to legitimize the web in ways that could not have happened otherwise. There are some striking problems, though, with this trending in the field of web design.
More complex, powerful, functional sites have resulted in increased bandwidth loads which are not only straining the resources of users, but are also straining the resources of providers. These same sites are not only requiring users to shell out extra money for faster connections, but they are also beginning to demand a more powerful platform in general, causing users to need faster computers just to keep up with the advance of technology.
Besides these concerns, however, there are also issues relating to how quickly some things are being brought to market. In the fast-paced world of internet technology companies hardly ever take the time to fully test their product before rushing it out to hungry consumers.
If these people were building airplanes the first model would ship without landing gear, bathrooms, or flight controls. The second model would add a few of these features, but would do so in such a way as to make the plane too heavy to take off half the time. The third model would include more powerful engines and wider wings to help it fly, but would make it too wide too land on most runways. The fourth model would fix this latest problem but would only be able to do so by removing all of the seats. The fifth model would finally include all of the features that travelers wanted, would be able to land on almost any runway, and would fly like a dream, but it would still crash 40% of the time and it would have cost the lives of thousands of "beta-travellers" during the development of the previous four models.
In the internet world the costs of development are customers and consumers forced to upgrade their hardware and software, sites that spent 40% of their time down during the development and implementation phases while crashing frequently during the time they were up, and thousands, perhaps even millions of users who became so disgusted by the problems that they encountered gave up on the site and never came back. This is too often the cost of "advancement."
All of the technological advancements in the world can't make the cutting edge, however. This can only be achieved through competent designers adopting them and making them successful. Unfortunately these same advancements, when combined with less than competent designers who leapt upon a new idea too quickly can achieve something else: the bleeding edge.
The bleeding edge is that level of technology and newness which lies beyond the cutting edge. It is the place where the knife of technology was utilized carelessly, cutting its wielder and drawing blood. It is what happens when someone pursues the cutting edge past the precipice of sanity and into the abyss populated by crashing sites which set the bar too high for their target audience to experience.
At this point you should be asking yourself where the border between cutting and bleeding lies. This is an important distinction and one that we as designers need to be able to identify lest we sin against it unknowing, and be cast down. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself that will help you to identify something which is bleeding edge.
If you can answer yes to all three of these questions then you're well on your way to having something which is not bleeding edge. Here are a few more questions to ask.
If you can answer yes to all of these then what you are attempting is probably not bleeding edge. If you were unable to answer yes to one or two of the questions above, especially those in the second set, then your design is not necessarily bleeding edge. If you had to answer no to three or four of the questions above, especially one from the first section, then your design is in danger of becoming bleeding edge. If you answered no to five or more of the questions above, or two or more of the questions from the first section, then your design has crossed the line and has become bleeding edge.
What can I do, you might ask. The answer is simple. Go back to your design and find the aspects of it that forced you to answer no. Once you have found them look at what you can do to make them work. If you find that they can not be made to work then drop them from your design, one by one, until you can honestly answer yes to the questions that stopped you before.
Of course you don't have to draw back from the bleeding edge. No one can force you to do so. Just remember though, the bleeding edge cuts--and the blood you lose may end up being the customers and users who keep your business alive.