Answer me this, why do people have these elaborate designs with images all over the place. Why don't they do what google does? Stay simple... Google has some nice looking sites with minimal graphics, and they still look good. Why do we feel we need these elaborate designs to make a good site?
Very good point, though I believe at this stage the fact that Google doesn't have much on their homepage most likely helps a lot with their resource usage on their servers, allowing them not to have to set up as many servers. They focused more on their actual product than looks of their site, which is their search algorithm. As far as other websites not-so-well known, people probably feel the need to design in such a way to stand out from other sites.
Thanks for the response. I think everyone should focus more on the product, not so much on a design. Sure, a flashy design is great, but the content is what matters. And a design as simple as google, can be created far easier than a flashy design and it will work as far back as IE6 with minimal troubles I would think. I think we should stop with the graphic heavy designs. Go for something simple and easy to use. If you want a web 2.0 look, have css rounded corners. (May not work in older browsers, but will still look nice in newer ones) I am thinking of making a bunch of Google & Facebook inspired designs for a free download. I think it might catch on.
ePenis. Some webdesigners like flashy. Also Google doesn;t have to draw people in, it;s already done that. Webdesigner doing flashie stuff are trying to draw people in, make them buy, make them stay on the site, etc.
The basics for web design for years has been clean and simple........ good content and get to the point........a lot of people just do it their own way......
I had to google ePenis... lol JimGee, that is a good point. What happened to the good days when sites were so simple? (Well other than the fact that languages were not advanced enough to do much more) theapparatus, I understand that. But I think a well designed simple design can be just as effective as one with a bunch of images, etc. A simple well designed design with maybe some nice AJAX to it will go even further.
*shrug* Personal opinion and what the client requests determines how a site is developed. Not disagreeing with you.
Really depends on the content of your website. Developing a car website for example isn't going to require an elaborate design, but having at least a unique concept of one might help boost your success rates. Would you go with the default IPB/vB skin for a graphic site? Not if you wanted to be successful. Obviously in the grand scheme of things: content > appearance. But appearance is going to open the door and possibly encourage site visitors to check out more of the website. I would never ever hire a web developer with a simple website for example. I want to see what they could do, and a portfolio should reflect that in my opinion.
The trick is to design a site that will work for the spiders and work for the people as well..... And..BFTP....I will never ever build a site for a client again......because when it doesn't do what they expect it to do...... Whose fault is it?
Flash acts as devil when we consider Search Engines, So I don't prefer flash sites, it's better to keep it simple, the simplest of the websites have most of the traffic, if we research we will find out
I wasn't referring to actually using flash. Although that is a good point about the search engines. What I was referring to was flashy websites that focus so much on fancy graphics and such.
Because people usually go to google looking for something else, google offers the means to find those fancy designed sites. Google doesn't want to distract users.
We also do it for SEO purposes. If you have a plain site without much content on the home page, chances are it is harder for google to find you unless your site is already popular. Google doesn't have to worry about seo for their site because people don't use google to find google.
Umm, sorry, but google doesn't give a bleep about whether your website looks fancy or not. Just cares about the content. We are talking about the graphics here...
In fact it depends on what type of site you have. I have a site used to be plain and simple and didn't receive much traffic from google. So I added a lot of content on the home page, and then I got a lot traffic from google. However, the site doesn't look so good anymore with all the contents I added and I end up having to add graphics to it to make it look better and end up getting more sales.
Keeping things clean and simple is often harder then it seems. A great example is Google's new fade-in design. The goal: make it simpler. The work: build, test, implement, test again, etc, etc, etc. Removing content often feels like cutting off a limb, but I agree with you. My mantra has always been "be like Google".
Because google is famous to all of us, it can provide us huge informations we need. You should have better design to attract people, if only your site is popular with people, more and more people know you site, love your site.