1. Clutter: Although I visit their site regularly, as they provide a spectacular amount of good environmentalist info, Grist’s website gives me a migraine. It looks like 2 or 3 sites dumped on top of each other, seemingly at least 2 headers, ads in between major content, inconspicuous lists, etc.
2. "Some sites even have design rules...": My brother's Zen Spider website is about as streamlined as you can get. No graphics, period. As he puts it:
'Content to Noise Ratio'
"I prefer content over noise. As such, I have a minimum of graphics in this site. There should be zero graphics on all regular pages. Those pages that do have graphics should have very very few. If you want, you can use my Cache Optimizer to load all of the images on this site in at once (less than 32Kb) to speed things up.
I have redesigned the entire site to have a good balance between raw content and navigability. I use HTML 3.2 compliant devices to create small fast navigation tools consistent across every page. As a result, my website can be viewed by any browser that I know is still in use (and most that aren't)."
Although it could be argued that any site which needs a sitemap is contradicting a sense of simplicity....you rarely see sitemaps these days, probably mostly in part due to the conventions Krug refered to in Chp. 3. I don't even know how old my brother's original site is. Old.
3. Visual Noise: Although I hadn't visited any Myspace page in ages (until today, and it seems they have overhauled visually in a major way), I remember always being hesitant to go to any Myspace pages due to their colorful body copy and flashing avatars overlaying whatever eternally-tiled background image the host provided. A true source of many a seizure I'm sure. Maybe they cleaned up their act over injury lawsuits.
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