Web design is comparative — since you’re one click away from the competition, comparison between your design and theirs is easy — and people do it, whether consciously or not. So what the competition is doing should matter to you. But just as important is what’s happening with Amazon, CNN, Yahoo and Google.
For a long time, I saw numerous Web pages that were basically ripoffs of Amazon. I’m now seeing a lot of the fat-graphic-or-Flash-widget just above screen center, with plenty of content nicely boxed up below that. Yes, the Home Page is cluttered (again… or, still?), but the trend seems to be: design the top half of the screen to brand the product and let the bottom half be as cluttered as it wants to be.
Perhaps designers are getting tired of fielding every department’s demand to be included (prominently!) on the Home Page, so they’ve collectively reduced the fight by half or more. Or maybe the need to score high in Google’s PageRank (which likes text… lots of text…) is driving the content bloat.
I still say, include white space, keep your key elements visually distinct so they don’t appear to be one big clump, provide a linear flow of information (and functions), and avoid drawing the eye away from the most important stuff.
Simpler is still better. Although Google’s ultra-minimal model won’t make the department heads happy, it’s so much easier to use than, say, Yahoo in all of its cluttered glory. Lesson: if you’re looking to get a leg up on the competition, put your services front and center and strip away just about everything else.
