We see the Apple iPod and applaud its design while wondering why we didn’t design it ourselves. Do you really think you could have designed it though? I mean really? i think about designing an mp3 player and what I would want on it and it doesn’t look like the iPod.

If you are designing Google how do you not go crazy and add a couple more tabs to showcase all the other cool services that you have to offer? Doing simple means saying no when you want to say yes we want more.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away

Antoine de Saint-Exup’ery

Now let us keep in mind that we are separating design and aesthetics so as not to come away with the belief that the best design is one with a white background and black text. When Muxtape first launched it went beyond simple so much to the point that it was difficult to understand. Sure people were lauding its simplicity, but if you actually used it you couldn’t tell when the song was over or if it was supposed to even be playing.

Simple helps you get the job done through the least path of resistance. I can think of a million things to add to del.icio.us, isn’t its appeal the fact that you get a link and all you do is clickthrough? Nothing cluttering or getting in the way of the purpose of the site which is to expose people to new content.

We went for the same philosophy for the new 9rules, but as you can see we added some aesthetics behind it. Simple is beautiful in the way that you can get from A to B without having to loop through C, D and F. Simple can also be aesthetically beautiful if done right. Combine these two types of beauty and you will find you have a site that is loved by everyone.

From an IA standpoint if you are looking for a method to simplify your site I suggest you take a look at this entry by 37signals that discusses paths and hierarchies.

We are currently in this situation and if you know the designs we have put out in the past you know that we take great pride in what we do when it comes to the aesthetics of a site. This time however time is of the essence so everything can’t be done perfectly and in fact you could say that we are going for good enough. I call this Microsoft design because when Microsoft releases an early version of a product it never is the best when it comes to design or functionality. It is just enough to get them in the race.

Now desktop applications differ from websites which differ from physical products so using this philosophy can not be a universal method within a company. It’s easier to apply this to websites because you can make rapid changes and show them off immediately. A little harder when it comes to applications because then you hope people will take the time to install the new version. Even harder with physical goods due to everything that is required for manufacturing and shipping.

We are launching these sites and admittedly they could look better, but they are usable and their designs don’t detract from the experience. When I wrote In The End I had these sites in mind and there is a realization that sometimes speed is the best thing you can do with regards to a site. If we were creating a service against competition that current exists then yes I think we would take more time in the design, but we realize we can push these sites out and improve on them over time.

If the design was the focus then we wouldn’t be doing our job of creating sites that engage our audience. With these sites the content will rule the day. We want to get into the market now and not wait till we have perfect 9 different designs and this is the sacrifice that we are taking. As you can see there are some things you can learn from Microsoft, just don’t tell anybody that I am admitting to that.

Ploc Media

Ecstatic Media

DigitalZoo

Dave Barnes

Now if I asked you to describe a typical blog homepage design would you provide me with the same answer? Should you? Although it depends greatly on how the blog functions how often do we see the homepage look like any other page for the blog?

The Superficial

As you can see The Superficial uses the same layout for its homepage and entry pages and it makes sense because the articles are short and the site is updated frequently. When a user visits the site they want to see what’s new right away and probably read it at the same time. There might be some minor changes you could make to the homepage design, but you can’t fault the design for sticking to the norm because it works with the site’s purpose.

Veerle

Veerle gives her audience more of a snapshot on the homepage, but if you know about her site I would be more interested in all the great articles that she has written. Her entries are usually great resources so they aren’t date-dependent, but the best snapshot of that you get is in the “Previously…” section.

TechCrunch

ReadWriteWeb

TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb are similar sites that have many of the same characteristics. However, their homepages differ so it is interesting to know which is the most effective. TechCrunch doesn’t vary their pages and you would think this causes readers to simply scroll through the homepage and click away when done. I know in my case I have no problem going there, reading the entries and moving on. If I want to go deeper then I go in deeper.

ReadWriteWeb does a decent job of providing a snapshot of what is current on the site, but because I am forced to clickthrough each article to read its entire contents I find myself rarely doing so. It is understandable why they take this approach because their entries many times are longer than those found on TC. To show even just two of them on the homepage would make for a very long site. This doesn’t mean though that the homepage design couldn’t change a bit and do a better job of giving me a snapshot of what is happening on the site.

Expert Idiot

Expert Idiot is a site that is updated usually once a day and in that case my thoughts would lean towards a design that shows the one entry for that day similar to 3by9. However, I went away from that only because I wanted to see how this layout would work. Something similar that might be more effective is a big listing like above, but in a sidebar with the most recent entry showing its full contents.

Most of the metadata on blogs is unnecessary in my opinion. Rarely do I care what category an entry is posted in and only care about the date when the subject matter is time-sensitive. Because of that both of those elements were hidden from view, but can be seen when hovering over a title.

Now this layout could totally bomb because it might not make sense and I might have went too far removing elements that would help enhance the understanding of what is going on. Time will tell.

Emersian

In the general sense I only refer to Emersian as a blog because I use blogging software and I allow comments. Beyond that it is more of a resource site to me and I wanted the homepage to reflect that. None of what I write here is time-sensitive. I’m trying to write articles that can be read years from now and although the examples may be out of date you can easily find when they were taken.

I also wanted my audience to go to the homepage and say “Wow, look at all the resources I have available to me right here” and I could only do that with the layout that I picked. The site is all about design so categories aren’t necessary with the titles and again, dates were removed because I don’t see them as being significant enough to warrant placement on the homepage.

Once you visit an entry page you will see a typical blog layout because that is what works for these pages.

9rules

No matter how many other editions of 9rules get put out this design has a good chance of always being my favorite. We tried to push the envelope and provide a general overview while giving a small insight into what the site contains. I do think maybe we would have been better served with a long listing of the recent content across all our mediums, but we took a chance and learned some things.

The content that was on 9rules (new version launches 4/30/08) is frequently updated, almost every minute. Our audience loves to digest this information and the homepage didn’t help them to do that. This was a tough design decision because we felt that we could easily overwhelm them with content and went the other direction by trying to guide them throughout the site.

One thing we could’ve done is placed a focus on one type of content (Member Entries, Notes or Clips) and pushed that onto the homepage and relegate the other two types to secondary status. This would allow our design to have some focus and hopefully give our audience a better understanding of what is going on.

Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries of the layouts you create. You don’t have to make an experimental design public, but don’t resign yourself to simply thinking you need a default two column design. Also don’t get crazy experimenting with layouts just to do so. Each decision should have a reason behind it based around the content of your site and how your audience uses the site.

However, I remember the same reaction coming from people when we showed them Chawlk for the first time as well and I came to realize something that is pretty obvious. When it comes to websites, in the end people just want a design that stays out of the way, easy to look at and clean. It really is that simple.

Reddit

Yes there should be some design touches that make the site standout from others, but in the end people just want to use the site. You ever go to Reddit and think those people complain about how plain the site is? I don’t often see it and when there were proposed design changes to spice things up, it looked like there was going to be a revolt.

This is by no means supposed to shy designers away from going balls out on a design, just realize that after the awards are handed out and you added the site to your portfolio, will it matter if nobody uses it? It seems as though the greatest designs never get used or is it that the greatest designs do get used and the prettiest ones just get added to galleries?

I love sites that look good. I appall sites that look like garbage. I respect sites that get all the money and traffic. I hate sites that get all the money and traffic and make my eyes bleed.

How many video games have you played that when all the technical achievements for their graphics and game of the year awards for their gameplay?

Again I don’t advocate plain design, far from it. As people who create websites though we have to remember what happens in the end: people just use our sites to use our sites.

Quilo

Martin Lawrence Photography

Blue Flavor

newmediaboutique

• Something genuine
• Design is communication
• Design is a language that people know, although they don’t know they know it until they start speaking it.
• Design is letting down our biases and opening our minds to new ideas.
• The ability to take a vision and bring it into focus as clearly as possible.
• Good design glues all the pieces together: the concept, the message, the product (website)

A couple months ago the wonderful Veerle held a poster contest asking participants to answer the questions “What is design?” The results give us a fascinating insight into how designers see design. Some of the responses include:

• Design is to make a synthesis of Needs + Information + Colors in order to create something Greater than the Sum of its Parts.
• Graphic Design is about colours, fonts and shapes.
• Graphic design: Juicy and nourishing communication
• Graphic design is masking your ideas.

What is the meaning of design to you?

But maybe I’m wrong here. Maybe it is a good thing to load a page up with as much content as possible so that a reader can browse around and hopefully randomly click to another page. However, do we want people to randomly click though or do we want them to know what they want, find it quickly and proceed with a smile on their face?

The problem is that not every user is the same. For example, when I go to Yahoo maybe I want only financial news or to check my Yahoo Mail. In that case I can think of better designs for each case, but unfortunately for me and Yahoo there are so many cases that they have to create a design that caters to everyone and no one. Same goes for the New York Times with the plethora of content and sections they offer. How do you limit a design that is supposed to offer so much?

There is a constant struggle in the design of a site. This struggle involves what you want to show your audience and what you should show them. You want to show them everything that you have to offer, but you should only show them what is needed. About 99% of the time these goals don’t align and that is a pain in the ass.

The Blog Herald

A great example of this I think is The Blog Herald. Now let me say that I think BH has a beautiful aesthetic about it. However, without trying to read anything do a quick scan and scroll of the page and ask yourself what caught your eye? What were you inclined to clickthrough on? Now going back to look at the site let’s see what content is being offered to the reader on the homepage excluding any ads which take up a ton of space on their own.

• Recent articles
• Full listing of contributors
• News (kind of confusing since the news is on BH, but what is the difference between that and what the left side offers?
• Bloggy Award reviews
• Submitted news
• Patrons (could fall under ads I guess
• Recent job listings
• Recent comments
• Friends

Some of these I can understand why they are there. I have Clips listings on this site, but I don’t think they are needed. I just want to promote other sites that I am a part of and it makes since for BH to do the same. However, look at what is being offered to a reader on the homepage and think about what the main focus of what BH offers. In its most basic form BH could be a single column page with the latest articles. Obviously they want to make money so adspace is needed to fit the appropriate ad sizes so this rules out the one column design. Stick in a couple more columns and the need to cross promote other sites and you all of a sudden you find yourself with a design that is cramming a lot onto one page. Thankfully they do it in a pretty clean design so they probably get away with it, but that isn’t always the case.

Now I’m not saying that offering less on their page would make them any more successful, but you can see the struggle that can occur for a designer that understands the importance of simply showing what is needed and nothing more. On Chawlk we want our audience to read the main content, but to also explore the site and that is what the sidebar is for. We have been tinkering with the amount of content that is shown and don’t think we are satsified yet. It is a constant process of trial and error and I am pretty sure we will never be 100% satisfied.

We have done great designs with 9rules in the past that offered a great balance of showing off what we have to offer without overwhelming visitors. The new 9rules (launching April 30) is without a doubt the cleanest version yet and shows off what we feel a user will want to see, while giving enough exposure to our members to satisfy their needs. If you had a chance to see I think you would agree and the funny part is we are still looking at sections to cut back on without taking away from our desired objectives.

This constant struggle between achieving business objectives and making sure your audience gets everything possible out of a site without overwhelming them is one of the things that I love about design so much. it is one of the reasons that we have no problem redesigning so often to the enjoyment and dismay of our audience. Design never seems to be a finished product even when you reach the deadline. There never seems to be a 100%, but a constant struggle to maintain a 90% completeness.

I wouldn’t have it any other way to be honest with you.

Cuba Moon

Biola Undergrad

Dizzain

HelloBard

Pikaboo

{ths}

Edgewater Cottage Community

Visit Cascadia

Simple Square

Information Architects

Concentric Studio

Indigo6

Mezzoblue

A Brief Message

The Village

Vinden

Whitwa

We Break Stuff

True Blue Titan

Seed Conference

Mark Wieman

The Morning News

Subtraction

Present Imperfect

Slideshow Pro

LJ World: Mining

Websiteburo

5ThirtyOne

Virb Is…

Merix Internet Technologies

Gapers Block

Evan Eckard

UX Magazine

AIGA New York

erraticwisdom

Present Imperfect

BusinessWeek

CNN

Scientific American

Grand Sierra Magazine

ZDNet

Cuba Moon

Biola Undergrad

Dizzain

HelloBard