Charlotte’s Web
It’s interesting how individual units assemble to create something grander than themselves. Just as biological cells aggregate into the vital tissues that build our bodies, spreadsheet cells aggregate into the essential insights that align modern organizations. Today, professionals spend much of their time designing data tables in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. As these individual cells are populated, a bigger picture emerges, which provides “cross-functional partners” with the clarity needed to make data-informed decisions.
This modern way of collaboration has deep roots. Scientists have relied on data tables for centuries, and in the early 90’s, Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, the world's largest particle physics laboratory) created the World Wide Web to enable scientists to share and link academic papers and data tables with each other.
It began as a text-heavy, utilitarian network with plain text and vibrant blue hyperlinks. But somewhere along the way, graphic designers realized they could manipulate the table cells and the content inside of them. By changing grid colors, adjusting typography, and adding images and colors into cells, they turned rigid data structures into a dynamic visual medium.
Manipulating data tables with basic design elements (line, shape, form, color, value, space, and texture) gave the illusion of an expansive, seamless page with styling elements. By the early 2000s, website developers ran wild and the internet quickly became populated with vibrant colors, unique typography, bizarre interactions, and striking animations. The digital Wild West had no rules, guidelines, or systems.
Apple was among the first, and most famously, to implement basic design elements harmoniously, which is called design principles: a set of rules that organize elements to create visually clear and balanced compositions. A lot of Apple’s success is attributed to Steve Jobs, who is notorious for being harsh, demanding, and exploitative. But like all bosses who lead with an authoritarian style, they create order: rules, guidelines, and systems.
As companies came to realize implementing design principles boosted their businesses, the last two decades have given rise to roles like “UI/UX,” “Product,” and “Interaction” Design in the tech industry. Despite the evolving titles, much of the job still boils down to manipulating tables with design elements and establishing them into rules, guidelines and systems. A digital designer’s version of a cell is a pixel, and they strive to “ship ‘pixel-perfect’ experiences.” In Silicon Valley, to signal a commitment to high craft for web and app design, you call yourself a “pixel-pusher”—which is essentially the entirety of the job.
Throughout the years, the role of design in technology has declined abysmally. Today, hiring practices and performance incentives favor loud, flashy design—like manipulating pixels to create illusions like the glass effect. Or, they reward status-quo design, a case study that over-explains making a button 5-10 pixels larger or bolding text that resulted in “business growth.” When people are heavily remunerated for arbitrarily manipulating pixels at the minuscule scope of consumer device screens, the results are lackluster. Working for institutions that only value metric growth creates products that are designed to solely capture and control attention at scale.
You see, the World Wide Web functions quite similarly to Charlotte' s Web. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved American elementary school classic, where Charlotte the spider uses the power of words to save a rambunctious pig named Wilbur from being slaughtered. By weaving praises directly into her web at the entrance of Wilbur’s pen, she changes the perception of him from being pork to be slaughtered to a miraculous pig whose life is worth valuing.
Charlotte first weaves “Some Pig” into her web, and it turns the entire barn into a bustling tourist attraction. When the initial excitement dies down, the barnyard goose suggests “Terrific” to create a new cycle of allure. When Wilbur is still on the line to be slaughtered, Templeton the rat suggests “Radiant.” When Wilbur’s newfound fame gets him a spot at the county fair, Charlotte weaves “Humble” on his stall at the fair. In the end, this clever campaign spares Wilbur’s life.
Charlotte’s web functions similarly to our World Wide Web. We often refer to it as “the web” because it describes a system where information is interconnected in all directions that resembles a spider’s web.
Now, let’s use Facebook’s early website as an example to understand this analogy. When Facebook first started, you could only create an account with a “harvard.edu”email, and the initial features were basic: profile picture, full name, and a button to “Add Friend.” Like “Some Pig,” it was something novel at the time that caught people’s attention. For the first time, you could see your friends, acquaintances, and secret crushes from Harvard online. On top of that, you were able to keep in touch with real identities familiar to you in a more personal and intimate way outside of the classroom.
To keep the momentum going as Charlotte did with “Terrific,” “Radiant,” and “Humble;” Facebook implemented features that gradually scaled their user base and influence. Zuckerberg and friends created initial features that solved their teenage-boy problems: homework help, figuring out which hot girls on campus were single, and how to interact with them in a low-stakes manner. Thus, the roll-out of “Courses” (to find classmates and study groups), “Relationship Status”, and “Poke” onto their web.
Eventually, they allowed students with other Ivy League emails to sign onto the platform, creating an exclusive and elite network—and it was a time when being on Facebook’s web meant something. They sequentially repeated this localized school-by-school rollout to all U.S. universities, then high school networks, and corporate networks before finally opening to the general public in September 2006.
Both Charlotte’s Web and Zuckerberg’s Web use what is called the “Bowling Alley” strategy, which involves targeting a very specific, high-density niche market segment, also known as the “headpin.” Once the niche is fully dominated, the momentum naturally knocks down adjacent, closely related markets—the neighboring pins.
Words on a web are incredibly powerful, from sparing a pig’s life to charging polarizing views and manipulating presidential elections. Much of our perception today is shaped by a plethora of words and media we receive from websites and apps that are designed to be mobile, responsive, accessible, and usable, down to the very last pixel, to hold your attention and feed your imagination.
It is worth reminding ourselves that a web is just a web. With a single swipe of a broom, it crumbles into nothing. It is your choice to feed your imagination with true knowledge, wonder, and creativity or narcissism, envy, and fake news. You have agency over your time and attention. A web only holds meaning if it acts as it was originally intended: a bridge. It should not be a closed loop of hyper-optimized pixels, but a tool that connects diverse fields of information.
According to CERN, “The World Wide Web (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.” To prepare my students to design and launch their first websites, we start by decoding this definition. It will require them to think critically, stripping away the noise of modern websites and apps to identify their own product’s true purpose and intentional features.
Once we identify this bigger vision, instead of following traditional product design methodologies, we come up with our own process to bring our ideas to life. My teaching approach centers heavily on experimentation. Experimentation is not about surface-level aesthetics or the intricate visual, motion, and interaction design that can easily be generated by AI; rather it is about actively deviating from traditional processes and ways of thinking. True experimental work happens when you blissfully dive in headfirst, ignorant of how things are conventionally done in the industry today.
