This is an interesting opinion on how the use of Lorem Ipsum as placeholder copy is itself a barrier to creating great websites – by sidelining the content during the design phase! It’s obvious when you think about it – and it makes you wonder about other “tried-and-tested” production methods which could in fact be unwittingly hindering us.
via .net magazine:
Latin placeholder text aka Lorem Ipsum isn’t just a nuisance. Web copywriter John McGarvey argues that it’s a massive obstacle to building truly great online experiences, explains what kind of problems it causes and how you, too, can stop using it.
If you’re a web designer, you’ll be familiar with Lorem Ipsum. There’s a good chance you’ll have used it at work today. You might even be a fan of the nonsense Latin placeholder text, chuckling away at imitators and parodies like gangsta ipsum, bacon ipsum and even Yorkshire ipsum.
If so, I hope you’ve had your fun, because the joke’s over. Lorem Ipsum is slowly destroying web design, and so it has to die. Let me explain…
Whoever started using Lorem Ipsum in web design did so for a reason. It does a good job of filling gaps on mockups, without being distracting like unfinished content. In short, it helps people focus on how your designs look, rather than what they say.
Maybe that was okay when the web was simple, when flat mockups turned into flat web pages and the idea of a good user experience was having a hit counter to show how popular your site was. But things are different now.
Lorem Ipsum causes far more problems than it solves. It’s a terrible substitute for the thing that matters most about great websites: the right content.
How can your client or boss possibly sign off on a web page if it doesn’t contain meaningful content? Sure, they can give a thumbs up if it looks good, but that’s very different to approving a design that works well and does what it needs to.
The wider message that Lorem Ipsum sends out is even more damaging. Every time you use it in a mockup or wireframe, you reinforce the idea that content is secondary. That it doesn’t matter. That you can just whip something up and drop it in at the last minute, and everything will be fine.
It’s no way to create great websites…. (continued)
