

Ask HN: Minimalistic web design works? - nrbafna

http://csa.22web.net/
This was my first actual design for a website. Though, I have been learning HTML/CSS/jQuery for only a month, I did kind of like what I made.
But, it got rejected for being too minimalistic and I was said the minimalist design is not charming enough. I have looked at department of computer science websites from standford/MIT, and they all believe in getting the content out in a no non-sense manner.
So, does minimalist design really work, or as some article recently pointed out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659020), simplicity is over-rated?
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tptacek
Simplicity makes things harder. Pare away elements and what remains has less
margin for error, and must be more effective. "Simplicity" isn't a license to
put a couple of <li>'s and a <p> on a page and call it a day.

In your case, there is neither a grid nor a measure that makes the placement
of elements on the page make sense. Text is haphazard. The "contents" of each
section are stuffed into an inexplicable jQuery scroller. Nav elements are
18px and subheds are 14px; there is minimal contrast between elements. This
probably wouldn't cut it as a blog template.

I like the restraint with color though. Color is one place where good-simple
is easier than good-complex.

Department websites at universities are also probably not a good benchmark for
your work. They tend to be utilitarian. Design is a secondary concern.

~~~
RossM
If I'm honest the "restraint of colour" is really a lack of colour. It needs
colour - I fall foul of this all the time as I don't mind grey-scale colour
schemes but it really needs at least 1, preferably two colours.

~~~
tptacek
Restrained greyscale (maybe 2-3 values plus black) and a strong accent color
is the "little black dress" of web design, and an easy way for non-designers
to produce designs that, while probably unspectacular, will at least look
competant.

~~~
loup-vaillant
I second that. I tried to put colours on my web site[1], and failed miserably.
Any colour scheme I could come up with was ugly. I finally gave up and settled
on the more manageable grey scale.

[1]: <http://www.loup-vaillant.fr>

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__david__
I don't mind the look too much but I do hate the all ajax navigation that
gratuitously breaks the back button.

I also don't like the fake scrollbar and the arbitrarily small content window
that wastes half of my window height--I've got a large screen, I shouldn't
have to look at your content through a peephole.

I personally like the muted colors and lack of gradient/round corners/drop
shadows everywhere but I _can_ see it being criticized as "too plain".
Minimalist doesn't == good design, necessarily.

~~~
rodion_89
i second the ajax hating. the site also doesnt degrade gracefully when
javascript is turned off.

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ErrantX
There is a vast difference between simplicity and minimalist.

Minimalist is very bare; the content has to stand strongly on it's own.

Simplistic designs don't have to be minimalist - just simple. So fewer
colours, less complexity and so on.

People generally (in my experience anyway) prefer simple to minimalist.

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todayiamme
It works to a certain extent in real life, but it won't work in BITS Pilani,
until you find the right person or word it in the right way.

I am saying this because I actually over heard the management say that it
isn't good for "business" if people thought x about the institute at the
conference my mother forced me to attended, which is just... sad.

It isn't that their education quality is less (same texts; good enough
teachers will give you the required amount of education. The rest is up to
you). It's just that it is less likely to find free thinkers over there who
are willing to speak out. If there are smart people on the faculty (there must
be) they choose their battles carefully and in this case they would tow the
managements line. If this was TIFR or IISc (I say this out of first hand
experience) then it would have been fine, because they _encourage_ such stuff
and they would be delighted to find someone on the tail end of the curve.

Should I give you some advice as someone who has been through this?

Give them what _they_ want.

Your professors are wise and follow their lead over here. Building a website
is something trivial in the longer run and you have to pick your battles
wisely. Spend the same energy in mastering this as it's obvious that you have
a talent at work over here. Remember fighting with idiots tends to make you an
idiot.

So, tread softly because you tread on your dreams.

Anyway, take care.

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drblast
For what it's worth, I love the design for the most part, but there are a
couple of problems that are bad enough people might reject the whole thing as
"too minimal."

The content frame in the middle has a scrollbar but no border, which is off-
putting since it's not standard. It's also not the full height of the browser,
which is useless; don't make me scroll more than I have to. For large pages,
that the gray box is a scrollbar is not obvious.

There is no indication that clicking faculty opens a new page. I thought
something went wrong the first time I clicked it.

The "association.SOMETHING" message at the top is a nice touch, but since it's
right justified it moves when you click a new page. The word "association"
should not move -- it's distracting.

The text in the paragraphs is too small for no reason, especially on your
"home" page.

I really like how the current page's link is indented and how the links move
to the right when you mouse over them. That's a nice touch and intuitive. I
love the lack of color. The page is otherwise very easy to read and navigate.

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jjg
Jason Fried had a quote recently about proportion in design and the space
between elements of the design. Although you have a minimal number of elements
in your design, their arrangement isn't in the right proportion. It's not
harmonious.

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2531-great-proportions-
melt-a...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2531-great-proportions-melt-away-
impurities-in)

There are a few other basic things that could be changed to make the site much
more usable. As someone else said, don't break the back button. Ditch the
scrolly boxes. You don't need them and they're unintuitive. Differentiate the
links on the page from the rest of the text. Right now the navigation links
are the same grey as the rest of the content. You have some red text mixed in
there and it looks clickable, but it isn't.

You're off to a good start, it just needs some refinement.

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Nicolo_Borghi
I wouldn't put together "minimalism" and "simplicity" as there is a
fundamental difference between the two.

When something is minimal it's not very useful. It's basically saying "I don't
want to look too complex".

On the other hand when something is simple it's because there's and underlying
understanding of complexity.

You can read what Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, thinks about this
(<http://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=404>).

The work of a designer should be therefore to understand complexity and make
it simple.In order to make it simple, the designer should ultimately be the
one who decides what to add and what to leave out.

I really suggest this video by Joel Spolsky during BoS 2009
<http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/08/19.html>

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thaumaturgy
This would be a fine design for a personal blog, but no, it's not something
that should be presented to a client.

Most design clients want _art_. They want something that is uniquely theirs;
they want a combination of colors and patterns and graphics that are
unmistakably unique. The designer's job is to reconcile art with function.
What you built is all function, and no art.

(But I like it.)

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tta
I think the CloudApp interface does an awesome job of being minimalist. For
instance, check out this download page: <http://cl.ly/e9dd6a48f2ef6bc63688>

(If you haven't heard of CloudApp: <http://getcloudapp.com>)

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percept
Minimalism fans should check out the following (they're up to 7 galleries
now):

<http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design-inspiration/>

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SteveC
For minimalism to work you need strong content. This website doesn't have
that. Even with strong content this design still has plenty of problems. That
link hover effect is awful. It feels like I'm playing whack-a-mole. You also
limited the content to a fixed height container. That would come back to bite
you if page content increases significantly or average screen resolution
increases. The website is also very forgettable. It has no real identity of
it's own. The name isn't even in the overall template.

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fuzz579
<http://www.anncoulter.com/>

Despite her craziness, Ann Coulter has a fairly nice minimalist website (well,
it looks minimalist). Although that quotations thing off to the side kinda
ruins it, AFAIK it was recently added (I don't remember seeing it during to
school year, when I last visited), so you might check the wayback machine.

~~~
kingkilr
Hrm not sure I agree, to my understsanding minimalism is all about making sure
the main thing that draws your eyes is the content, here all of the stuff on
the right is completely distracting from the content.

~~~
Mz
Click on any other page besides the home page and you might better understand
his point. I also kind of went "huh???!!" on the homepage.

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chewbranca
Good article I saw recently on minimalist web design, might give you some
ideas: [http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/minimalist-web-
desig...](http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/minimalist-web-design-when-
less-is-more/)

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nrbafna
Links, <http://csa.22web.net/> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659020>

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cmelbye
I can't stand small scrolling areas within pages. This one is better than most
because the content actually scrolls when I slide with two fingers on a Mac,
but it's still more difficult to read.

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desigooner
just as an fyi, Malwarebytes throws an error when trying to access the
22web.net address. Make sure the site's safe

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auxbuss
You need to validate your code. It's currently invalid due a number of
fundamental errors.

A simple method is to use the HTML Validator plug-in in Firefox. It's not
perfect, but a simple, effective guide.

~~~
alexforster
Validate your code by testing it in the three major layout engines. Force it
to degrade by disabling flash, stylesheets, javascript, etc and fix what you
feel you can. Get as much content on-screen as quickly as you can, whether by
using CDNs or backend caching or local storage, and know exactly what happens
on your page in the first few seconds after onLoad. If you're feeling
particularly generous, annotate the code for screen readers and hide jump
links around your page.

But don't validate your code on the W3C validator and be done with it. If you
have to run the validator at all - and I haven't in years - take the
validation errors as suggestions and not as gospel.

~~~
auxbuss
That's why I said, "It's not perfect, but a simple, effective guide". It's a
guide, not a fait accompli.

If it fails that test, then it'll fail more thorough tests. Fail and fail
early.

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Mz
FWIW: I don't really like the design but I can't quite say why. And I tend to
like minimalist design. As best I can guess: It feels to me like your page
lacks a sense of structure. I think giving something a sense of structure
using minimalist design is quite challenging. When it is done well, it's
wonderfully elegant. When it's not done well, there is just no there there. I
guess.

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sleepingbot
<http://faircompanies.com>

We tried to make things really simple in our site. Goal: content is king. The
rest, should fade away from user's attention.

Short of what Jeff Bezos is trying with the Kindle reading experience.

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c00p3r
How about this particular site? Is it works for you?

