Boing-Boing points to Web Design from Scratch and its look at good pages. The attributes are:
- Simple layout
- 3D effects, used sparingly
- Soft, neutral background colours
- Strong colour, used sparingly
- Cute icons, used sparingly
- Plenty of whitespace
- Nice big text
There has been a definite trend thanks to the spare iconic designs of the iPod and Google towards the decluttering of web design over the last three years. Site look and feel seems to align with the gestalt of the era, and now that the commercial internet is 10 years old, one can look at a site and make remarks such as “1998 called and they want their web site back.
The timeless designs are the ones that stay in place. This is the last great design I was involved with and it is essentially the same as it was in 2000 when it launched.
News and media sites have the hardest time – the advertising turns their best efforts into the Las Vegas Strip. But the sites cited by Web Design from Scratch are, for the most part, commercial entities that don’t pay their freight through banners, IMUs, towers, skyscrapers, and other eye pollution.
I keep saying that the best sites “don’t make me think.” And users prefer making several mindless clicks rather than having to think hard about making just one click. I talk about minimalism in site redesign as being important in the “post-post modern” sense. I kind of like that.
And you did a good job at your meetings.