Is Less Really More?
Posted by Al Newkirk on November 7th, 2006.
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In terms of design and development, is less really more? I have been designing and programming on the web for over seven years and I still have not firmly answered that question. I have been on both sides of the spectrum and still, undecided. When developing an application’s GUI (graphical user interface) or simply creating a new website it appears that the latest design trend is simply less. When I prepare to develop new web content, I ask myself, CSS and XHTML or Photoshop and HTML. Usually I opt for Photoshop and HTML (really depends on my audience), design the layout, slice it up, format it and edit the syntax with dreamweaver and “vwaahlah”. The advantage to designing this way is the ease of design and complete control over positioning with less coding. The draw-back is the obvious heavy usage of images which results in unneccessarily long page refresh/loading time. Recently I have witnessed well designed sites developed using pure HTML and CSS such as the sites listed at http://www.cssbeauty.com/. These sites are light weight and load fast and comply with the XHTML standard as established by the W3C.
This brings me to the basis of this article, websites with graphical user interfaces that are overcrowded and image-heavy comprised of tables seem to be taking a backseat to textbased style sheet drawn interfaces with static and/or floating “div”s with dynamically-loading images. Which style of design do you subscribe to, and why?
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19 Responses to Is Less Really More?
Maybe you can optimize page load time
Like compress your stuff, cache control?
From the perspective of design, the “less is more” principle is followed to achieve a “less cluttered” interface, spare use of screen estate by using icons instead of large header images.
From a design point of view, less is often more because it allows the content to breathe. A claustrophobic feel to the content often puts people off reading. And at the end of the day, that’s what they’re there for.
From a standards/semantics point of view, less code often produces more standards /semantics friendly design. A case of divitis can be as bad as tables for code bloating. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made. It can be necessary to add another div tag to achieve a certain result in my view.
I think it depends on the project. I immediately think of the Basecamp application when I think of less being more. Very simple interface, which is needed because the app is awesome and doesn’t require a complex interface.
What really matters is the content. As long as the design is not plain ugly, it should do it. A site may be beautiful at first glance, but if it’s not usable, it won’t work as well as a more basic one (design-wise). If it’s ergonomic and functionnal, somehow, it’s beautiful.
if you reduce the number of background images, you reduce page load. CSS has background-position to move around 1 image.
Example: CSS sprites
Well, since people really got aware of standards for like two years ago, I’ve been coding properly - doesn’t everybody know the evil of tables, by now?
Less design is bad, less effects is good.
I didn’t mean design as in ‘graphics’ I meant as in good solutions for the user to understand things better :)
I didn’t mean design as in ‘graphics’ I meant as in good solutions for the user to understand things better :)
For example:
information design: information architecture -> typography
usability design: page flow -> placement, ordering of blocks
I have been using less is more not as a design approach but as guidelines to keep a check on all the different aspects of design. None of them should be more! Whether it is graphics centred or text centred depends on the project. But in either case, none of the aspects should be more enough to ruin the function or usability or performance of the web site.
Hasn’t the method of generating web pages from ImageReady gone the way of the dodo bird? Having said that, I think there’s a time and place for that style of web design, but in general you’re doing a disservice to yourself, other designers and your client.
The CSS-driven, semantic style of page design does get a little boring — where’s the creativity when all sites look like blogs? — but it’s the way of the future. Well, the future is NOW. When in doubt, go clean and go functional. Generating a page through Photoshop makes for a quick n’ dirty job that will be a pain to customize and update in the future.
As a fellow fadtastic author, I can’t pass up this opportunity to plug an article I published here a while ago on the trend to minimalism from a design standpoint. That article is here: http://fadtastic.net/2006/02/02/when-less-isnt-less/
I think it depends on the purpose of the site. For a personal page, I would say anything goes. If you’re writing a web app or a creating a site with some goal in mind, then every element should support and point to that goal. Otherwise it just distracts from it.
I definitely choose to design my sites using xhtml/css. I truly believe it is the best choice between html/photoshop and xhtml/css. There are several advantages to choosing the latter. One advantage is the W3C compliance, which as you know, helps with SEO. The more well formed your site, the eaiser it is for Google to index the site. Also, Google is the biggest blind user on the web, which gets us into Section 508 compliance. Section 508 talks about visually impaired users on the web. Visually impaired users use screenreaders to surf the web, but those screenreaders have a difficult time reading table structure and graphics. HTML/PHOTOSHOP designed sites can create a very unpleasant experience for the visually impaired web user. My final advantage deals with the mobile web. XHTML/CSS designed sites give you a headstart in ensuring your site is mobile ready. Well, these are just a few advantages to choosing the xhtml/css designed site.
Quest McKinney,
Some very good points there. I also believe that standards and SEO walk hand-in-hand.
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