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What Website has the Cleanest Site Design?
Posted by
Cliff
on Mon May 19, 2003 04:38 PM
from the suitable-examples-for-others dept.
from the suitable-examples-for-others dept.
Gabe Anast asks: "The recent article on Microsoft's market dominance referred to an article at the International Herald Tribune, which I read until I became engrossed in the natural readability and intuitive interface of that site. It's amazing! I'll have to say that site has the cleanest design of any I have ever used. So, of course, I thought 'What are the other "best designed" sites? Would Slashdot know? My personal criteria for site design is: graphic design/appeal; an intuitive interface; and content that flows naturally (eg: high content density that does not sacrifice clarity). What are your favorite sites, and by what criteria do you judge such?"
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What Website has the Cleanest Site Design?
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Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://digg.com/)
Easy interface, easy results.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://--/ | Last Journal: Monday December 09 2002, @05:12PM)
the less there is the better usually. ads should not be getting too much space and useless bloating by providing links to other pages of the same provider(that have nothing to do with the content) are usually useless on every page.
in fact these 'navigational' bars sometimes make the navigating much more difficult, since they tend to make it so that you get everywhere from one point. now this might seem smart and useful, but would you rather have easier time finding where you are going with a room that had 300 doors, or finding where you want to be in structure where there was like 4 doors from every room with signs saying what are you going towards..
Re:Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://fredrikj.net/)
Case in point: slashdot.org. Seriously, Slashdot's search function rarely takes me to the article I'm looking for, while with Google I always get there if I just remember one or two words from the headline.
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday July 27 2004, @02:24PM)
http://www.google.com/
search terms here site:slashdot.org
Obvious to you or I, but I'm hoping this post is useful to someone.
Without a doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.loosewire.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 19 2003, @05:23PM)
Gripe (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://bg.rifetech.com/)
I think we can set the bar a little higher than that don't you?
Re:Gripe (Score:4, Informative)
Clean Design? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://miscreation.net/)
I am very displeased with the website's designer. This is all before I have even had a chance to explore the rest of the site. Sorry, your 10 seconds is up. Next Link.....
ok, it's not really part of the internet... (Score:5, Funny)
It's right here! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.lbcpc.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 12 2003, @05:30PM)
Cleanest site design... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday October 22 2003, @08:13AM)
My Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://thinkinginbinary.webhop.net/ | Last Journal: Friday July 02 2004, @11:44AM)
Well I would say one site that has a very clean design is Slashdot in Light mode, but I guess that doesn't really count... I haven't really run in to any really easy to use sites lately.
First, a site has to look decent, color- and font-wise. A standard font like arial or times is good, and the colors can't clash. Also, the font, color, size, et cetera has to be consistent throught the page, i.e. if there are topic headings make them all the same style. The place I have seen this most ignored is in small e-shops where they have links and pictures and huge headings everywhere.
Next: navigatino has to be easy and structured, but not overstructured--it's a balance. If you have just a pile of pages without organization, it's really hard to find stuff, but (as it sometimes happens with large directories like Yahoo and Google) grouping under too many levels gives vague top-level headings that don't really reveal what's beneath.
Another random thing that popped into my head: if the main content of a site is articles, then the navbar should have a bunch of categories for articles. It's really annoying when I see something like Home, About Us, Articles, Polls, Members, Forums, Help, Log In and I go to several places looking for stuff when all the main content is under one heading; in other words, keep the sections balanced.
Use stylesheets... it's really annoying to see crappy web pages with different fonts and colors, or mistakes in markup because the writer was typing out font tags. I saw a web site the other day that had font tags around each and every link on the page to give links a different color... um, there's an easier way to do it!
Don't add pointless features. Nobody really wants to vote on which picture of your cat is the best (sorry, a classic of vanity web pages) or sign your pointless guestbook. When you use one of those stupid web-page wizards, put a little thought into whether you really need each feature you want to add...
More about stylesheets... This is hard for already-created sites, but lay out and format the bulk of your site with CSS so it can be resized, stretched, and twisted without looking stupid. Make sure changing the font size doesn't ruin your layout, and also that you can change the font size--don't use pixel sizes!
Okay, I'm done ranting...
Ha'ayal and Fisheye (Score:3, Informative)
(http://8ln.org/ | Last Journal: Monday March 24 2003, @03:37AM)
The man knows his html... (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously though, here are some sites whose design I like:
Sweetcode [sweetcode.org]
Mathworld [wolfram.com]
openrbl.org [openrbl.org]
perldoc [perldoc.com]
Paul Borke's website [swin.edu.au]
the Joel On Software forums [fogcreek.com]
the Tech Report [tech-report.com] (a debatable choice, but the best of its type)
Dmitry's Design Lab [webreference.com]
Everyone knows that Jeff. K's Web site (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.hegemonist.com/)
how about some judging criteria: (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.usrnull.com/)
And secondly, it's got to look good running at 64 x 48 pixels. Some people need to look at their monitors from the next room using an inverted pair of binoculars.
Finally, under no circumstances shall you take into consideration the content being displayed. My blog (dedicated to the daily minutiae of my plants and their arcing patterns toward sunlight) easily satisfies all of these requirements, so why shouldn't a consumer-oriented, dynamic, international news site be able to do it too?
Off the top of my head: (Score:3, Informative)
(http://hur.st/)
Clean news sites (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 06 2005, @12:39PM)
Drilling down to an area of interest on either site is very clean, quick and easy too.
My vote goes to... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
At first glance many will disagree, and likely every one of them will have no experience with McMaster-Carr. The thing you have to realize is that their printed catalog is about 3500 pages, and they stock over 400,000 items, and this site incorporates all that and more. I have to say this is hands down the most usable e-commerce site I've ever had to deal with, putting many sites with far fewer items to shame.
webpagesthatsuck.com (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.schnits.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 29 2005, @12:19AM)
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com
Financial Times (German Edition) (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Sunday September 16, @04:44AM)
When they did the web site for the German edition, they carried on with the new graphic design producing one that seems better than their English language site [ft.com]. Even if you are a non German-language speaker, I would reccomend a visit just to look at the design. As a side note, the FT as a newspaper is never big on pictures and the web site carries on with that tradition.
Interestingly enough, the site remains free for the time being.
Standards compliance, damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://zonix.adsl.dk/ | Last Journal: Monday June 09 2003, @05:07AM)
Geez, forget clean "design"!
I'd settle for standards compliant sites. If you start there, it's harder to screw up your precious "design", unless tempted by using flash and javascript, and the like.
People, your next stop is the W3C [w3.org].
zApple.com (Score:3, Funny)
Text-based design (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 30 2003, @09:13AM)