What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
How to Make Your PC as Fast as the Day You Bought It view!
howlifeworks.com - What's the fastest way to restore a computer to its original blazing glory
50 Comments
- wildfire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+37Well-written article which many web developers should take heed towards -- Keep it simple while also being logically structured and unobnoxious with filler and design.
- wrongwayrob, on 10/11/2007, -1/+34Yes, yes, the redesign of cnn.com is very nice, though it is lacking essential web staples, e.g. [blink] and [marquee]. Inclusion of these tags would really help round out the new site.
- unloud, on 10/11/2007, -4/+32Digg's comment system and color scheme could definitely learn from this.
Thanks for the great article :-) - sickswaystop, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19great article for any print or web designer, i'd ike to see more of these.
- knomevol, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7i like the digg style overall. many sites make a mockery of sanity with their layout of nested comments. for example, never got into slashdot because i felt their method of conversation layout was an anguish to sit through.
i complained about digg's lines all over the place with the initial nested comments version - and they've really fixed that for the most part. i think it would be even more mentally "soft", if you will, if they got rid of the lines altogether and stepped down a gradient of box fills behind each index of level of the commentary multidimensional array. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8The web has come full circle. From simple designs, just because the technology wasn't there, to complex overdone designs that caused minor seizers, now back to simple easy to use convenient designs where you can get a lot of information quick.
I still get a kick when I stumble across a website, most likely a personal page, that hasn't been updated in 8 years. - satzio, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Somewhere out there, emerging quietly, there is the Bob Ross of web design. With happy little layouts.
- knomevol, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6under construction signs all over the place. saturday morning newspaper cartoon style animated gifs all over the place. and then when when advertising took off, the animated ads thrown about the place, more optically noisy than a vegas night.
minor seizures, yup, inductive times. meanwhile, back at the ranch... - Tippis, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Digg had (has?) captchas, but I think it was only for your 10 first comments or some such...
- praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+4I take it you're the guy who design USA Today's website?
- kolywater, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3strategies like quiet structure definitely improve low-contrast sites like cnn, but i think they become essential for sites that use bold colors or contain more design flair. it's always difficult to balance artistic design with legibility, and these kinds of structural cues and tips can be a big help. dugg.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3No. They're still wildly popular on blogs and forums.
- madpie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3In the non-blog world, aka the mainstream media, people also parade around as experts and people believe their ***** even more than they believe bloggers. The only difference is that you can usually respond to a blogger, whereas you rarely get to have any meaningful discourse with some wanker pundit.
But I agree with your broader point that different design makes sense for different people. In the post-myspace world, we should all realize that "aesthetically pleasing to me" and "wildly profitable for somebody else" are not necessarily equivalent. - knomevol, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3captchas where? digg? (in which case, i never saw any.... )
- identifiedlogo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2excellent points...i think www.apple.com has the best weblayout
- tybris, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I thought this was common knowledge by now... apparently not...
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Beyond their website Apple figured out the KISS principle for all their products decades ago and the rest of the world is just catching up.
- clarocada, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2403 on the page this digg is supposed to lead to. Kind of minimalist.
- jaredvolkl, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I agree that this is a good article, but you have to take it in context. This guy is looking exclusively at 2 news sites. And in that context, he's completely correct, content should be at the forefront. Your interface elements should not get in the way. However, you wouldn't want to use those ideas on every site you make because frankly, they'd all look pretty boring.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Great article and many more simlar great article on the site. Love the layout too!
- oneblackcitizen, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5I guess I must be the only one that liked the old CNN.com better.
- estvir, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Random somewhat unrelated thing but I 'know' the guy who redesigned CNN, he's a member on TheRoot42.org which is a private forum and I think he works for Razorfish. It's cool to see him listening to what others had to say, etc.
Anyway, along with the marquee tag you need lots of .GIFS like 'Under construction' and so on. Oh, and don't forget iFrames and lens flares, they never go out of style. - gepower, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1great article. i especially liked the comparison of both headers as well as the complexity of the 'structural elements' from usa today.
can anyone recommend similar articles? thanks in advance! - theadvinci, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1What's with the 404's and 403's???
- Bamborzled, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You CAN'T say that again.
- me0wzilla, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Try reading the book 'The principles of beautiful web design' from sitepoint.com The book isn't expensive and very good. I hear its available on pdf too direct from the site.
- me0wzilla, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Exactly, its just another technique to use if your client needs fit. If not choose something else such as the USA today style.
- MrSunshine, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't consider the CNN website to be a good example for design and layout.
- nefty, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I think the poster should read an article on how speak English.
- MrsBabyMan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0That's right, I hate Slashdot's interface, but Digg's interface could be simpler. Reddit has the best interface for nested comments. Digg can learn a few things from Reddit.
- cfish, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Very well put together!
- zoeskk, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0great article. love it. :)
- saznap, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Well said!!! While I haven't designed for any Fortune 500's, I have designed plenty of other sites and read a ton of books, articles, etc. You have to be selective about what you read and what you accept as truth. The customer is the king and you must blend what they want with what you know about best practice.
Personally, when I look at the CNN site what I see is lack of separation in featured content and an overabundance of hyperlinks. - aseidl, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Good to see I'm not the only one who thought that. The fonts don't seem consistent and the mix of empty whitespace and images on the left is annoying. For longish articles, I tend to resize the window to only show the text and content. Better integration of the images would have helped a lot.
- PlasmaFlux, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0lol @ irony
0_0
^_^ - legatus, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4Quiet structure Zzzz......
- 80hd, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1speaking of making websites easy to use, has anybody else noticed that captcha's are gone?
- willemmulder, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1The article is good *if* you want to make such a quiet structure site. Clients often don't like it because it is so 'dull', looks so 'empty' and so on... Look at myspace... Apparently there are a lot of people that like that. As a designer you should respect that and just create what they want you to create. Everyone has a different target group... There is no common design or such thing.
- Alexx3k, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Very good article :) dugg
- ArnoldLayne, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3If he's an expert, why does his layout suck so much?
- HoGiHung, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Oh I guess I'm on the elite digger's hit list now since they feel the need to digg me down everytime I comment. LOL, hope you feel more important now.
Ho... - martoon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Sounds interesting. Tell me more, about your quiet structure.
- moltar2, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Lame. Doesn't actually talk about how to create a layout, just compares a "bad" design to a "good" design and gives a couple of tips. Good article - inaccurate description.
- WaterMedia, on 10/11/2007, -8/+4This is all preference based folks! Interesting article, and yes his design is quiet, but just because this is in vogue does not make it correct. As a designer who has worked with over 50 Fortune 500 companies, a clients needs come first. In USA Today's case, their style is to make the design part of the content. There is no one right way to do anything!
I'm beginning to really hate the world of blogs where we all parade around as experts. But the worst part is when regular people believe their *****. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1...
- ggbs, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3http://duggmirror.com/design/Quiet_Structure_Consistent_Clear_Web_Design/
- kcornwell, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2seriously what a bunch of *****. there is no difference. they are BOTH cluttered. here is an example of a clear web design...
http://www.idiotproofwebsite.com - kcornwell, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2"clear web design"... what a load of crap...
http://www.googleitbitch.com/?id=205 - kcornwell, on 10/11/2007, -10/+1quiet structure? bs as well...
http://www.googleitbitch.com/?id=206 - HoGiHung, on 10/11/2007, -15/+3If English isn't the posters primary language, then I understand. Otherwise, you could use a few lessons in grammar and stick a little "to" in between the How and create. We don't need to give the "elders" any more fuel of our illiteracy.
Nice article though, so diggs for that.
Ho...
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is