What is Digg?78 Comments
- kermithefrog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22all of them are similar when bunched together like this
- redlemon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21some of these diggs smell like 1$
- waxdart, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Neither of these is true. Web Design is a subset of graphic design. And this batch is a lot of meh.
- PabloIV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16You're not supposed to just straight up rip em off. You're supposed to take hints here and there and make your own thing.
- unit101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I like some of the designs but a lot of them are *not* clean, they are very cluttered.
- thailand1972, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Here we go again. These are eye candy sites and a LOT of them utterly fail basic usability.
Examples:
1. Their first in the list (http://www.eurovision.tv/) is cluttered with too many tabbed menus. It uses a scrollable div layer which fails accessibility. It sure looks nice'n'purdy though :)
2. 16th in the list (http://www.cubeclub-chemnitz.de/club.php) - the header image takes up too much vertical space. It means to get to the actual content of the site you need to always keep scrolling down to see it. In 800 x 600 you can 't even see the content without scrolling! This is true for a LOT of the designs in this list - too much vertical space wasted on the design itself and the content is pushed down. It sure looks nice'n'purdy though :)
I could go on and on with this list but do not have the time. Fresh and clean? Most look cluttered to me, with far too much emphasis on eye candy (that is kind of monster-templatish and cheapish looking anyway) than actual content, usability and accessibility.
Good web design for me includes at least the following:-
- W3C Compliant (X)HTML
- Various screen resolutions (e.g. 800 x 600, 1024 x 768) - horizontal scrolling?
- Various browsers and versions rendering OK? (e.g. IE, Firefox, Opera)
- How quickly are pages loading?
- Contrast of text with background - easy to read?
- Navigation links clearly described?
- Main navigation in same place on each page?
- Most important pages present in main navigation?
- Use of anchor text only (e.g. no javascript menu)?
- Is there a link back to the home page?
- For larger sites, is there a textfield search?
- Are visited and non-visited links distinguishable from one another?
- Are links clearly distinguished from normal text?
- Are images described by alt-tags?
- How clear are images? Are they relevant?
- How easy to find phone number/contact form?
- Mouseclicks - how many used to perform basic actions such as buying?
- Does user know what to expect after performing an action (such as entering shipping details)?
- Is a sitemap present?
- If you use Flash, Javascript or other technologies that users may not use/have disabled, is the site still functional?
- Browser navigation is never disabled (sometimes developers deliberately disable the backbutton - not good)?
- Is there a consistant use of colours, fonts and text sizes throughout the site?
- Is the content in the same place on every page (i.e. users know where to focus on intuitively)?
- Is the text easy to read (i.e. text not too small, and contrasts well)
- Spelling/grammatical error check
- Plain English check - are you using too much jargon or waffling with cliches and tired sales-pitch? Users are skimming your pages so you want to get your point across succinctly
- How quick to ascertain purpose of site
- Call to actions in wording?
- Are URLs search engine friendly?
- Unique TITLE, META description and keywords on every page that describe what is on the particular page (as opposed to your website in general)?
- Internal linking - good anchor text and structure?
- Headline tags present on pages (H1, H2 etc)?
- Are H1, URL, TITLE tags fairly uniform on every page (i.e. they're not conflicting with one another diluting page's SEO)
- Is content rich with relevant keyphrases?
- Is there a use of graphical text?
- External links - is there a way to easily reciprocate links with potential link partners (i.e. easy to use content manangement)
- Javascript source - is it externally linked to, or explicitly within the source code of your HTML pages?
I thought I was the bees knees a few years ago as a web designer. Now, the more I learn about proper web design, the more I think "how close can I get to the mark of being an adequate web designer?". The vast majority of web designers fail the mark of adequacy by a country mile. - goyney, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Graphic design == Web design
Web design == Graphic design
I'd like to see you create a good looking website in all ASCII. Stop looking for reasons to dig people down. - Sagags, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6finaly dugg mirror caught something
- AoiTakuma, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6http://duggmirror.com/design/45_Fresh_Clean_and_Impressive_Designs/
some pictures dont work but the links are all active - picto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Agreed. Call me a minimalist if you will...but I prefer usability over looks anyday. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to pass up an outstanding graphic design, but most people will jump too fast to what looks awesome rather than what makes a usable interface. Usability, usability, usability...
- bacchist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5i don't see a clean one in the bunch. clean seems to have taken on a life of its own as a buzz word that's lost all meaning
- Nissmo66, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7So fresh....yet so clean
- n00b3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I looked at some of the source code, and they are plagued with redundant fireworks code. most of these sites are nice to look at but for a common user, they are confusing as hell. I am a web designer and I can't figure the navigation for some of the site. not to mention they load slow as hell.
most of these sites are a visual over kill. There are so many visual elements fighting for your attention and the color scheme is hurting my eyes. its like wrapping a piece of crap in a nice decorative paper. but the fact remains, its a piece of crap. - theadvinci, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1I liked the 13 strides design
- spvaland, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4This is a stupid conversation.
- goyney, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Right, they are examples. Many web-design sites do this to encourage more web developers to embrace CSS and XHTML, make standards compliant websites, and bring life to otherwise boring web enviroments.
- battleroyalex, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Number 40 stands out the most to me
- ryware, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1If you don't want to use ThinkGeek or want to save a few bucks try Amazon here http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FFaucet-Light-by-Hogwild%2Fdp%2FB000KX6DHG%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dtoys-and-games%26qid%3D1173817310%26sr%3D1-1&tag=gorcam-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 They have it for only $8.95!
- DNABeast, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3OH GOD MY VISION!!!!
How in the name of god do these designs pass for 'Clean'? They're almost all so damn busy. - ryware, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1...
- VideoExperiment, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is a great list of sites, very inspirational. I've compiled a list of the best designs for publicly traded companies in the tech sector. You can see what millions in budget gets big companies:
http://digg.com/design/The_45_Best_Technology_Sector_Corporate_Web_Designs_A_G - Ellsass, on 11/05/2008, -1/+2to their credit, it doesn't say *top* 45 in either the article or digg story.
- d3designs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1These sites are trying too hard to look Web 2.0, while becoming as complex and confusing as Web 1.0 sites. This is a step in the wrong direction.
What was wrong with simple, clean designs? - virzen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+045个很棒的网页设计
- starguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Here's where the web falls flat on its ass. Every darn website has its own freaking interface, most of which is always useless chart funk. You get stuck in the inteface, and never figure out what exactly you can do on the websites or are expected to do. Frequently there is no clear path through them. And yet people seem to power on through and figure them out with much diligence.
Form follows function. Forget from the start what you want your site to look like, and think what you want it to DO. These graphic artists are like the same people that spend endless hours tweaking out their desktops to look just so... and never get any work done because they're too busy always changing they're eye candy to something fresh as their whim changes. What they need to do is turn off all those visual effects, set their background to a neutral solid color, and actually roll up their sleeves and get down to work actually creating something useful. Its the same with these websites. Look at Ebay. Its not incredibly gorgeous... but its form follows its function. Ebay has millions of profits a year, through clearing billions in transaction sales. Millions a year from a website, of all things. Why? Because the website is nothing but a front end, to the big database behind it. Its the same with Google. The web part is nothing but an interface, to the massive database behind it, that can be queried, searched, and used by people how they see fit in their pursuit of their own ends.
Less is more. Make you're interface so incredibly simple, with so few options, so its as intuitive as it can be. Don't try and reinvent the wheel to upstage someone else... copy in general some other site that is very popular that people are already familiar with how it works. So we don't have to relearn the wheel every time we go to a website, over and over. Even then, include some basic directions right where the actions are.
And for folks that run smaller less successful websites... for god's sake, don't require registration to use the service... that's one more barrier between the user and the user accomplishing what they want to do. This is especially true about simply leaving a comment on a blog or website you've stumbled across on the internet. You don't want to have to go through reistration, pick a username, get a confirmation email link, etc, just to leave a five line comment on a website page to which you more than likely will not return to. - 3DProf4online, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What do you think about 3D models placed at our web site. Could they be useful for fresh, clean and impressive online store design?
3DProf4online
from TouchBubble.com - rubah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought having a bunch of graphic headers was passé?
Back to the drawing board, I guess. - keepclear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+130 Light Designs you should have seen (all standards compliant!)
http://tutorialblog.org/30-light-designs-you-shouldve-seen/ - Louis11, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Does #35 sell copyright "protection" too?
- MedHead, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I figured, when I clicked the link, that I was going to see Digg-like interfaces: minimal, clean, yet easy to understand and use. Instead, I see huge banners, large images, confusing and overdone color palettes, and content that is pushed into tiny blocks that don't fill the screen, nor end up easy to read. These aren't usable, they're just mildly interesting to view (definitely not "impressive"). I guess function follows form these days, eh?
- bpmox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I couldn't agree more, and I'm a graphic designer. The very purpose of good design is enhance our ability to communicate, and that means usability as a focal point.
- arhseven, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Graphic design and web design are two sides of the same coin. You can't possibly be a good web designer without understanding the fundamentals of graphic design. Layout, color, composition all play the same roles as they do in print as they do on the web. Otherwise sites would still look like they did ten years ago.
- fly21, on 06/20/2008, -0/+0It's a great set
number 41 - especially nice - berwiki, on 10/12/2007, -11/+11ugh, so many blogs.
- miyamotofreak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I love daringfireball.net . The design is good looking and easy to use.
- picto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"Why do so many of the designs fail to utilize the full width of the screen?"
I'll agree that a page with virtually no width is absolutely terrible. But it's not always a bad thing to discard extra space on the screen for a page width that is easier on readers. This draws more attention to the content itself and actually makes text more legible.
Think of it like a book: would you want to have a 2 foot wide page in a book? Fact is, readers generally find less width of text areas to generally enhance legibility. - justinm1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I like that #21 was done by Larissa Meek, star of TV's Average Joe 2: Hawaii!
http://www.larissameek.com/about/
Most awesome woman ever? - tf5bassist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1boring. they're all severely too similar. probably some decent CONTENT, maybe... i MIGHT even look into Carbonmade.com. but. boring.
- jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@lunchbox170
True to point - where would we be without top10, top20, top45, and top100 lists of such astounding excellence in design. These great designers must have been perusing through the blogosphere on their research for uniqueness which they apparently found - the unmistakable uniqueness that comes with every standard blog system ;D - antechinus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2All of these "talants" seem to be producing the same dark conformist drek.
- KaserPro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Thats becuase these arn't very new.
all very admirable, just not new, or original.
The people that made these have been looking through too many back issues of last year's graphik magazine.
as with all design, you can't go all out, you've got to include some current cleches(be it typography, illustration style, or colour scheme.)
to see where deign is at now, try going to a graphic design degree show, you'll find lots of *****, but there will be some interesting original/clever stuff - korteenea, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I like some of these, but most of them don't qualify as "clean," and at least half of them could be far more usable. Not to say they're bad... just not anything to drool over. If you wanna see something complex, yet clean, check out www.iamalwayshungry.com. It's Ness Higson's site. There isn't much in the interface that isn't necessary, but it still has depth and interactivity. It is in Flash, though, unfortunately. But I think once the browsers get on equal footing, one could achieve this without it.
My fav is #37. - geekitechture, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Why do so many of the designs fail to utilize the full width of the screen? Is it for backward compatibilty with lower screen resolutions? I can't see firing up and wasting so many pixels just to display a huge chunk of color on either side of the content.
The comment above about all the huge banners is right, most of them have huge gaudy ones. Not only that, but most of those designs are so wide that without resizing them in the CSS it would be necessary to scrollbar them on all but the widest screens. It's wasteful and tacky-looking, design for the sake of design rather than navigation and usability.
I don't care what; if I lost any visitor because my graphics-happy CSS took too long to download or because my navigation wasn't clear and easy to find, then I wouldn't want that CSS on my website.
That said, number 19 is spellbinding, but I'd have to resize it.
And that said, aren't we getting too CSS/graphics/custom design happy in Web 2.0? I'll read an article on any sort of background from plain white page with no formatting at all to the most annoying, tiny-fonted, distractingly over-graphiced mess if I think it's worth my time. Why doesn't everyone design simply to get the maximum potential from their website? - selen, on 07/12/2008, -0/+0They're almost all so damn busy.The design is good looking and easy to use.
Thanks Smashing Magazine!
http://www.onlineflashgames.org
http://www.bid-directory.net - Nspire1, on 12/30/2008, -0/+0These are really nice looking designs.
http://www.sa-technology.com - kdehead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1none of the designs are "clean" - some are pretty, and graphically, look appealing , but they arent clean and minimalist.
there's something to be said about no-fuss simplicity , like the Plan 9 website:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/ - SloppyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1As someone who is a fan of more simplistic designs, I don't really enjoy these that much. Too much going on to obscure the content. When I show up to a web page I don't want a bunch of frilly graphics clogging my screen, I want information.
- SunAlex, on 09/03/2008, -0/+0not so good. Not the best design.
http://sooslic.com/?id=1
http://www.alltelpavilionvip.com
http://sunayana2007.org/sponsorshipntrade_audiovis ...
http://www.yara-online.org
http://search.ashtech.info/design -
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