“What Is Important To A Site
Every site has a purpose and it is this purpose that should always be the focus when designing a website. No matter how stupid or insane that purpose may be, without a purpose, the site has no reason to exist (the purpose of a site is to have a purpose?). The goal of the designer is to make sure that purpose is portrayed to the audience in the best way possible. To do that, the designer must make sure that nothing is distracting the user away from discovering that purpose. Once the audience is removed from the purpose of the site, the site has no meaning to them and they leave to never come back. If you remember the first iterations of the Twitter home page then you may recall how many times you would hear someone say they didn’t understand the point of the site. You might have been one of those people, I know I was for a while. The reason for this is because the design of Twitter led you to believe that Twitter was about letting other people know what you are up to, when in fact, the purpose has been to communicate and establish relationships with others. Now the site design is built around this idea of communication and more and more people are starting to see the usefulness behind the site. Some might not consider the site to be minimalist, but to me it is exactly that. My reasoning? It drives the purpose of the site home to the user, without adding anything unnecessary. What about the blue color and the graphics, don’t they take away from the minimalist ideal? I don’t think so, because part of the purpose of Twitter is to show it is a fun community type place. It can be hard to create that feeling among your audience simply through a black & white site with a block of text.”

— Minimalism Is Mandatory

12:30 pm  •  31 December 2009