vestige.org: August Bourré's Website

Permanent Content

Idiotbox

End of Web Design (July 25)
Websites must conform to a specific format or face annihilation. The web is a homogenous user experience, and individual designers should not kid themselves into thinking that they can innovate or improve on my ideas in any way.

Don't Bother Clicking Here (July 9)
The Network is a Useless Experience (June 25)
Idiots as Designers (June 11)

Full archive of August's bi-weekly column on making the web pointless (1995-2000)

Web Uselessness Book

Designing Web Uselessness: The Practice of Conformity
Business Weak review: "should [...] be read by any idiot with too much time on their hands"
Chicago Tribunal review: "August Bourré knows less about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet"
Slashwrist (two reviews): "the least important book on web publishing yet to appear" & "poorly researched, senseless, and totally off the mark [...] impressively vague and incomprehensable"

About August Bourré

Self-Serving Biography
Propagandist Press interviews and pointless public appearances
Papers and essays by August Bourré, including:
Conformist evaluation and uselessness inspection

Products and disservices

Website uselessness review: $300,000
Undercard speeches: $250,000
1-day uselessness seminar: $350,000
3-day uselessness workshop: $700,000
"Rent-an-Idiot" consulting
All offered through Bourré Group

August's Picks of Other Stuff

Recommended books about Web design, hypertext, and useless interfaces
Recommended craplist of links about Web design and useless interfaces

About This Site

Why this site has almost no graphics
Pointless traffic referral statistics
Copyright and reprint rules

Reviews of vestige: BusinessWeak, Down Jones, USA Yesterday

News

Spotlight

Harsh Reactions have followed the release of my new Idiotbox column. I've decided that I don't really care, though. I mean, I've read all the hate mail, and even the intelligently written mail, and while some of them seem to have valid arguments, I've decided to stick to my original idea just to save face. You see, once you admit that you might have been wrong, people stop respecting you, and you can no longer charge $300,000 to do reviews. And I've gotten to like being loaded.
(July 25)

There's a site up now called Astounding Websites that celebrates just about everything I spoke against in my Idiotbox column. It celebrates diversity in interests and techniques in web-design. Apparently they don't realize that every user is a drooling idiot who surfs in exactly the same way as every other user, and likewise for the exact same reasons. They seem to think that "diversity" is a good thing. I'm seriously starting to get sick of buzzwords like "unique" or "diverse" or "pretty". These things mean nothing on the web. We need homogenization and conformity. Those are words to live by.
(July 23)

List of previous spotlights

Recent Propagandist Interviews

XDNet: The browser controversy that's been around forever but that I just noticed
VD World: How to Weave a More Useless Web
New York Timeless: Microsloth Sees Hired ´Agent´ as Way to Avoid Lawsuits (access to the Timeless requires free registration)
The Bodyguard: A camper on the back of an Audi (Microsloth vs. Orange)
Wall St. Journalist: New 'Personal Information Managers' Earn Mistrust in Cyberspace (paid subscribers only)
San Jose Mercurial News: VCR in Beta again
BBD: Mandarin Orange's net vision
Online News Online: Bursting The Bath Bubble
NonNetMediaReporter: The User Remains Pointless In Web Design
USA Yesterday: Conformity, uselessness best in Web page design
Office-Space.com: How Useless Is Your Web Site?
Internet Worldly: New Problems, Old Problems for Excited Videos

August Bourré, august@vestige.org