One of the nice about web design is the fusion of creativity with functionality. Creativity usually applies to the graphical elements, whereas functionality hinders your design quite a bit. This is good and bad. For example, link navigation belongs on the top or left, if you’re in Latin-based countries, because people read left-right, top-bottom. So, this hinders where your content and links can go and you begin to fall into a rut where you use the same 1, 2 or 3 column layouts.

That’s why graphics are oh so important to the web and probably why people misuse them so much, boredom! But, alas, there is another way: Databases! Databases are what I’ve devoted much of this summer and semester to for work and school. Dbs are the fundamental way to add functionality and still get the creativity out of work. Dbs add creativity in three ways 1)db design 2)db output 3) social interaction
Db design

At the University of Iowa College of Business, Professor Currim teaches the intro and advanced database courses. These courses give a strong foundation for database design and application. Throughout the past year, I’ve learned the value of a well-designed db and the pit-falls of a poor one. Now that we’re beyond the basics, our class has started implementing triggers and complex design models that better explain a db and its constraints and functionality. Databases are the backbone of information systems and a good design will always give you better security, functionality and confidence in your data.

Db output

Once you’ve stored your data, now you want to display for others to see. Some would ask, why not just put in an excel spreadsheet and display as a table? Uh, how about sorting based a column (in a browser) or doing a query to find the users that a last name starting with K and in the Iowa City area. Now run that query manually over 100,000 lines of data. So, since we both agree that dbs are useful, how should we display that data? There are a few ways, first a standard table. Sometimes all you need is a basic layout for your complex query. Second, AJAX! This is all the rage and the wave of the current. Asynchronous db entry and querying allows for users to have almost no lag in accessing and inputing data. Combining Javascript, XML and HTML, AJAX is used whenever databases on involved on the web.

Social Interaction

The database is a key tool for storing information, so the question is: how do we get people to store their information in our database? If you are a company, then you pay your employees to do it so that they can either sell, support or design something that makes money. If you are an unassiocated individual, then you db entry and db querying/viewing needs to be fun. Hence, the founding of facebook, slashdot, digg and other social networking and news sites. These sites are built on the notion of storing lots of information about yourself and selectively sharing that information with others (friends & stalkers).

All of that was written in about 10 minutes, think about all of the things that databases can do for users and the web if you really put your mind to it!

-Derrick

this post was partly inspired by Db II and Bloc Party’s ‘Pioneers’