SIMPLICITY:

Web design is simpler than ever, and that’s a good thing. 2.0 design means focused, clean and simple. That doesn’t necessarily mean minimalist, as I’ll explain later.

I really believe in simplicity. That’s not to say that all web sites should be minimal, but that we should use as few features as are necessary to achieve what you need to achieve.

Why simplicity is good:

1. Web sites have goals and all web pages have purposes.
2. Users’ attention is a finite resource.
3. It’s the designer’s job to help users to find what they want (or to notice what the site wants them to notice)
4. Stuff on the screen attracts the eye. The more stuff there is, the more different things there are to notice, and the less likely a user is to notice the important stuff.
5. So we need to enable certain communication, and we also need to minimize noise. That means we need to find a solution that’s does its stuff with as little as possible. That’s economy, or simplicity.

Whenever you’re designing, take it as a discipline consciously to remove all unnecessary visual elements. Concentrate particularly on areas of the layout that are less relevant to the purpose of a page, because visual activity in these areas will distract attention from the key content and navigation.

“It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,