Hip? Cool? Usable?

What is hip? It's cool, smart, unique, progressive, up to date, and somewhat anti-establishment. What is ULTRA hip? Take a look at these forward thinking designs to find out for yourself. Here is a great colllection of ultra hip eye candy from CoolHomepages.

IF you're the designer of something really hip - SUBMIT IT to us!

Can A Design Be TOO Hip?

It all depends on your intended audience. IF they are hipsters and designers then almost nothing is TOO hip. No matter how much usability suffers (and it usually does!) there are times when you can really let loose and create nothing but pure eye candy. Usability be damned! 

But if the design is to be consumed or used by the mass public then it has to be reasonably intuitive and easy to use. It has to. Why? Because users don't read, they don't have patience, there are tons of other sites they would rather use than your difficult to navigate site, and the moment they hit a road block - something that keeps them from doing exactly what they want to do, they leave.

And they don't just leave right now. They leave forever normally. So ask yourself if you're willing to lose that user forever before you get too carried away with your design. Keep the user in mind people. Users and clients pay the bills.

When is ultra hip design appropriate?

If you're a design house making it's name as a hipster house and super cool and really cutting edge - then it's the perfect time to unveil your new ultra hip website design - even if the usability suffers a bit. Hopefully it doesn't suffer TOO much. But maybe it's just so flaming hip that it's hard to use. You and your clients can be the judge there.

The holy grail of ultra hip design

The holy grail in all design, including ultra hip design is when form meets function. Design meets usability. Ultimately the goal is a jaw droppingly cool design that is also intuitive and easy to use!

This is no small task as evidenced by the thousands of attempts online -- I'd say the usability suffers inversely proportionate to the cool-hip factor of the design most time. Try hard to upset that equation and make something that looks way cool, and is also way cool and easy to use.