By the way, why haven’t you got your own site?

Either too busy with History Commons (endless, endless amounts of work), or too lazy. And I sort of do have my own site, the History Commons Groups blog. Even though I run it, I’m still somewhat limited in what I can write about over there, but when I feel like breathing fire about something political, I post at the Daily Kos–my latest rant, in all its glory, and the profanity alert is very serious. If I want to write about Web design, I post at Sitepoint, or at Vivien’s, or here, and music–well, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten heavily into musical discussion, but I used to post on the Aural Moon community boards before I decided that they were too much into weenie rock and Italian imitators of ELP. That pretty much covers it, unless I want to talk college basketball, which I haven’t in a couple of years.

I’m a bit worried that both your and Chris’s response refer to the aesthetic argument. The original article is more a philosophical piece. I’m not sure if this reflects the fact that it is all down to taste, or whether my own response kind of misses the point.

You didn’t miss anything. I can’t speak for Chris, but I just riffed off of your original post–found a point that caught my interest and took off in my own haphazard direction. Your post opens up an entire range of questions, from design aesthetics to information architecture. If your site got half the traffic it deserves, others would undoubtedly pick up on some of the other points.

I think 90% of the battle is actually deciding what you want your site to do. Even a simple blog.

Which is where so many sites fall flat on their faces. The designer, proprietor, or whomever never quite knows what the site is for, or if they know, don’t know how to make it reflect their ambition. It’s a happy medium that most of us can’t achieve. One example I like to cite is one I won’t link to out of common courtesy; the site owner is a WordPress.com maven who posts many helpful bits on the WP forums, and has designed a site that is just lovely. The site doesn’t really do anything, though: its raison d’etre seems to be “collecting cool things I found while surfing the Internet.” I guess that’s a rationale for a site, but not one I want to spend a lot of time visiting.

He he—I have to admit, I can’t stand King Crimson. Maybe it is all down to taste. We can all agree on The Ramones, though.

Crimson is one of those groups that demands a response; either you love them or you scramble for the knitting needles to poke your ears out. (I think John Cage could respect that reaction.) But since there’s at least three main iterations of KC–the proggy, mellotron-soaked 60s, the barbed-wire, gothic technojazz 70s, and the world-beat gamelan 80s and beyond–you might find something you like somewhere in their wildly varied catalog. As for the Ramones, gabba gabba hey, dude.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I can appreciate the complexity of Adobe Photoshop and software like Google Analytics

I agree, but I’d say Analytic’s interface is simpler. It does an awful lot that I can access/work out pretty quickly. The number of top level options is limited. My forays into Photoshop have been disasterous. (OTH, I am graphically rubbish.)

The struggle can make it all the more satisfying

Absolutely, but I’m not sure I want to struggle with a web interface. I wonder if Andy means visual complexity but simple structure. His own site would be a good example of this.

I really appreciate the reply: excellently written. By the way, why haven’t you got your own site?

Leon can design a site so minimalistic that John Cage would contemplate it in silent bliss

Apart from loving the fact that my name has appeared in the same sentence as John Cage, and resisting the temptation to refer to the ultimate reductionist statement, I’m a bit worried that both your and Chris’s response refer to the aesthetic argument. The original article is more a philosophical piece. I’m not sure if this reflects the fact that it is all down to taste, or whether my own response kind of misses the point.

does it do what it was designed to do?

I think 90% of the battle is actually deciding what you want your site to do. Even a simple blog.

King Crimson, Yes, and early Genesis were gorgeously complex

He he—I have to admit, I can’t stand King Crimson. Maybe it is all down to taste. We can all agree on The Ramones, though.

Having said all that, I think your comments on his article are quite insightful. There is an aesthetically and functionally qualitative difference between “simple” and “simplistic,” just as there is between “complex” and “complicated.”

Your example of music is spot on. It took me a long time to appreciate the raw, brutal simplicity of the Ramones, for example, or (my personal unfavorite for decades) AC/DC. It also took me some time to discern that overly complicated music wasn’t by necessity good (King Crimson, Yes, and early Genesis were gorgeously complex; Spock’s Beard, for example, is complicated, overly mannered, and ultimately insipid). All of these musical examples are, of course, based on my own tastes. One could as easily compare Beethoven to Bruckner, Roberta Flack to Mariah Carey, Brian Eno to elevator muzak. We could do the same thing with painters, for example: in my mind, Mondrian is wonderfully simple while Klee is just simple-minded. Many will disagree.

It ultimately comes down to a matter of taste. Greg is the only one who can answer “complex or complicated?” for his own purposes and enjoyment, for example. Does Madonna make “good” music because 50 million fans lap up her work, or are there 50 million taste-impaired idiots out there? Is Crimson a band for the ages because I say they are, even though I can clear a room by playing, say, “Fracture?” The same decisions apply to designing Web sites, or anything that involves a design aesthetic. I can design a site that appeals to my personal aesthetic to the point that I draw a small, fanatic band of cult devotees and drive the rest of the world elsewhere. Leon can design a site so minimalistic that John Cage would contemplate it in silent bliss, while others go elsewhere for stacks of content. Leon, you and Andy have raised questions that cannot, by definition, be answered except on an individual basis, and, to an extent, by the cumulative effect of your design. Does it attract visitors? Does it retain visitors? Has it built a community of users who reflect the aesthetic and purpose of the site? In other words, does it do what it was designed to do?

I think a big part of the problem with site design is that designers make these sites without considering this question. I think two of the questions that should be considered, and answered, before putting fingers to keyboard are: How complex does this site need to be? How simple can it be and still function properly? Find the junction between those two concepts and I’d say you have the proper focus for your site.

I find beauty in the simplicity of the Ipod and my French coffee press.

At the same time I can appreciate the complexity of Adobe Photoshop and software like Google Analytics. Perhaps I’ll never use all of their features, but the freedom and the sense of unlimited possibilities is powerful.

“Complicatedness” may seem all bad, but sometimes a sense of mystery makes an object or story more compelling. I’m thinking of movies like Pulp Fiction with an interwoven plot, and video games where you have a real sense of accomplishment after mastering a a complicated mix of controls and strategy. The struggle can make it all the more satisfying. (Although I suppose I could be making the mistake of confusing “complicatedness” with complexity.)

I think the trick is to know which direction you should go, and how far, on each project.