10 Best Designed Websites - Ben Hunt

If there is one thing that was said about the majority of his top ten website, it was simplicity. It is amazing how designers can get so involved and try to put so much stuff into one page and add so many little gadgets that the page loses its power and it becomes a jumbled page. I like how he wrote that the Mozilla.com was "Clear, open, fresh, simple." I think these four words sum up about any good site. Even very complex sites that are done well still are clear and fresh. One of my favorite sites, sounds cheesy, but it is Google. Everything is so simple. White, and a few words to get you to where you need to go. I use gmail and it is mapped out very well. It is clear, open, and everything else the other websites have.
Another aspect that he brought up that I liked was balance. Websites need balance. If everything is on one side of the page, you almost want to tilt your head so things will be balanced. As a formation dancer I have learned, when an audience sees the entire floor, they want to see a balance of movement and couples dancing across the floor. If the dancers clump together the entire time on side of the stage, there is no emotion or mood created through the dancing. Just like a formation dance team, a website needs to have the same affect on the user. It cannot have chaos all over...it needs to have structure and balance to keep it looking good.
I agree with his decisions of the top 10 sites. He did a good job explaining why each deserved to be in the top ten and my favorite thing was the simplicity. Each website was clean, clear, and quite simple. We should not try to so hard to put everything into one things just because we know how to do it. We must take a page a time and design it to the best it can be but keeping it simple, clear, and balanced.