But we also wish Marc would remember that most Web visitors need a road map. Navigation, usability and clarity are not petty hobgoblins, they are design essentials. Of course, there are thousands of sites that lack both beauty and simple clarity. Among the worst offenders are the sites that were once called directories, and were later called portals. Its competitors fare even worse.
Text downloads instantly, so the page seems to appear in the viewer's browser window immediately.
Even the navigation is made with HTML text, instead of the usual typographic GIF images. This does not bother Hutchinson, whose site is mainly of interest to designers, and thus enjoys a disproportionately large Mac-based readership. Again, we see white space. Again we see small type, though this time we are looking at type designed in Photoshop and exported as a GIF file. A tiny, colorful cube is used as a brand image.