Mastery, Mystery, and Misery: The Ideologies of Web Design (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
Summary:
Simple, unobtrusive designs that support users are successful because they abide by the Web’s nature — and they make people feel good.
A couple of days ago I had to look up some information on a website that will remain nameless but it violated some of my pet peeves of web design. It had a splash page, an unusual navigation bar, html idiosyncracies, and no search page. Their real mistake was to ask what the public thought of their “new” web page design. Since I was in a ornery mood I fired off a flame about my pet peeves while apologizing at the same time. I dislike flames but this site was so retro. So here I am a week later reading Jakob Nielsen’s article on why simple, unobtrusive designs are successful and wondering why those folks did not read his recommendations before redesigning their site. Jakob has been recommending these design principles for at least six years. Although I do not feel obligated to rigidly follow all of his recommendations I find most of his ideas to be useful, practical and easy to implement. It is the web designers who combine Jakob’s recommendations with a pleasing and interesting visual design who I respect the most.