This is the kind of thing we emphasize at YC. Step 1 in web design: don't have irregularity by accident. Only make stuff vary when you want to draw attention to it.
"... impressive and convincing presentation for letting graphic form follow function ..."
It's not a bad article but barely scratches the surface ...
Typography:
The immediate example used (CNN) is pretty poor. Why? The number of different type faces (above 3), the very poor contrast (red on white has less contrast than say black on yellow or white on black) and the mixing of case (count the number of upper case, lower case and mixed case words).
Also the type sizes are all way to small for 'tired eyes' straining to read 8-10pt with inconstant type cases. This is exacerbated by the media. Though we do see chunking of data to allow scanning via headlines.
Colour:
See any use of green? Oops there goes your 10% of your male readers. Do you see lots of colour contrast & grading to indicate things - another No, No - Colour blindness makes it difficult to see gradations ( http://tinyurl.com/2vwxj6 ) There are tools ( http://tinyurl.com/62lz5 ) to improve colour design for colour blind readers (eg: alternative style sheets with colour-blindness limitations ). Do we see any in the examples of these constraints in mind?
Layout & noise:
This bit the article gets right. I've been looking at print layouts pretty carefully lately and the article does a good job characterising easier to read layouts. It is something you can view every day looking at a broadsheet newspaper & their weekend magazines though.
Media:
And finally media. Your average monitor has nowhere near the resolution of a printed page. Yet we still try to design for on-line reading cramming as much information on the screen as possible at the same time failing to acknowledge the limitations of the media, namely the monitor.
Aesthetics at the expense of fundamentals & new media?
My chief bug with 'graphic design expert' articles like this one, is the attention to the aesthetics at the expense of some the fundamentals - the technical stuff they don't teach in your typical & atypical visual arts based design courses (but more likely game design schools). Problems, that are historically solvable in print, but not electronic media. Like a square peg into a round hole, old print hacks are highlighted as new media solutions.
Now an article I would like to see is how the author tackles 'craigslist'.
