Comments on: What Is Design Clutter?

By: Chicago Printing

Chicago Printing — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:54:02 +0000

Hi Micheal,

Thanks for this post I have learn a lot and realized some of my mistakes in blogging. Yeah, your right surfers look the site differently from blogger. Great post.

By: CadeRageous

CadeRageous — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:26:31 +0000

I second Danny Outlaw’s comment. A perfect example of a site that always has tons of “stuff” but looks visually clean due to its strict grid use is NewYorkTimes.com

By: texas medical transcription

texas medical transcription — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:58:32 +0000

I’ve always been pretty good at getting rid of clutter but I’d like to be even better at it – hence the new fantasies about having a room that makes me feel good and is a reflection of my mind.

By: Sabrina

Sabrina — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:49:38 +0000

Michael is correct. These are also the some of the guidelines that we follow in our offshore web developing company.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:42:58 +0000

I used to have a lot of clutter on my website, so I started using tabs to place things better for people. By using site heatmaps I was able to learn more about what people used and what they never did. Also another problem with clutter is how it affect page load time by increasing the http requests.

By: lynnscott

lynnscott — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:52:36 +0000

Hi….Heading and colour….easy on the eyes…then make it simple…. design…then the content’s…of what it has to offer…Great Post and good info… Thanks..

By: dani

dani — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:25:12 +0000

I hope, it would be the description or tagline above the fold first. Then they should do dive into the deeper.

Michael, did You try color contrast analyser/checker for this blog? How important is the color for Your blog design?

By: Rajat Bhadani

Rajat Bhadani — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:34:59 +0000

very truly said… a mistake most designers end up making – they start decorating while the focus should be just on designing the content

By: Michael Martin

Michael Martin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:48:02 +0000

James – Ads are some of the worst clutter because they go out of their way trying to grab attention. Most blogs look a lot better without them. It was probably worth getting rid of them!

Danny – Grids are great, and yes, a site can have a lot of content, but there is a line. The best design in the world isn’t going to help you if you’ve filled the sidebar with 20 different widgets.

Elena – Absolutely. By trimming down the amount of content on the page, the content that remains gets so much more attention. It really draws focus to your logo and such as brandable elements.

Aaron – That’s the nice thing about designing for the web. You’re free to make those changes at any time. A theme is never just “done.”

Kristarella – The RSS icon is very noticeable at the minute (Because of the color), but yep, I would notice the featured images next. As far as sidebar content goes, that’s probably a good thing.

Black Zedd – If you might need ads in the future, there’s still no need to worry about it today. You want the best ad-free layout possible. When it comes to using ads, you can experiment with the design. If there isn’t enough room, you can sort that out at the time (eg. You could make the blog wider?). It won’t be much of a problem.

By: Black Zedd

Black Zedd — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:51:35 +0000

The first focal point when I view my website is of course the header- and most of my web visitors also got the same result.

And yes, I do want their initial attention there, as the header explains what my blog is all about (I purposedly made them big).

I learned from your blog to use left-indent for my text. It definitely freed the clutter a little. I’m not sure whether there are space for ads though..i may need one in the future..