Simple Stuff

The techniques of page design that Nielsen illustrates throughout this chapter seem to be very simple and based off of common sense. It is surprising to me the number of websites he is able to draw from that illustrate his points of weak design. Granted, he is pulling from pages constructed a number of years ago when we were all still settling into the Web. However, for any trained designer, it seems like a simple task to assess a layout and say, “this looks too cluttered” or “this is organized poorly”. I would like to find out if the people who designed the sites he is drawing from are designers from the visual arts, or designers versed in the technology and computing. It just seems as though the sites lack a general understanding of aesthetic principles.