Most of my life I have tried to focus on what is important. That meant pay attention to fundamentals, not glitz, not ephemerals, not surface but depth. When I felt I was choosing between form and content, I thought "form" was unimportant air while "content" was the meat. To some extent, that is still true. However, I am getting more respect for aspects of form and format. These categories may include art aspects such as color, coordination of shapes and textures.
As I have worked with web pages, it has become clear that a page can contain many pixels or points and each of them could be a switch or a link to something else. Our eyes and brains can only hold so much but web page design could get far more complex than it is. Simplicity pays, as the open space of Google's home page shows, even though there is a steady and strong temptation to put a little more on a page, to tempt the user this way or that.
Font shape and size matters, too. My friend told me years ago that this font I am using, Comic Sans, is far easier for her to read than the more common and standard New Times Roman or Arial. In Word and no doubt other programs, it is possible to set particular words flashing on and off, blinking in an attempt to attract attention. Sometimes, color is used for a word or highlighting to surround a given word with color. Of course, like all other moves to emphasize, these effects have to be used with a little restraint or one merely creates a jumble and a mess and nothing stands out. When I resume my feeling that format doesn't matter, I recall the effect of using black for the letters and black for the highlighting like this: example.
I have found that my wife and many other women seem to be more strongly aware of color around them than I am. They seem to derive more feeling or mood from color and coordination between colors than I do. We proved to our mutual satisfaction that she not only knows the colors our rooms are painted but can select accessories such as pillows or curtains that match or contrast well while shopping, without a sample of the color at hand. Meanwhile, I can't remember what color our flooring is or the color of our foyer. Decades ago, we attended some research presentations that stated results that boys tended to respond to game scenes in computer games that had strong primary shades of contrasting color while girls were more interested in scenes in coordinated shades and tones in the same color family. They weren't as drawn to high, dramatic contrast as boys.
