What Website has the Cleanest Site Design?

Gabe Anast asks: "The recent article on Microsoft's market dominance referred to an article at the International Herald Tribune, which I read until I became engrossed in the natural readability and intuitive interface of that site. It's amazing! I'll have to say that site has the cleanest design of any I have ever used. So, of course, I thought 'What are the other "best designed" sites? Would Slashdot know? My personal criteria for site design is: graphic design/appeal; an intuitive interface; and content that flows naturally (eg: high content density that does not sacrifice clarity). What are your favorite sites, and by what criteria do you judge such?"

Comments

Easy

[sporty]

Google.com

Easy interface, easy results.

Re:Easy

[gl4ss]

funny thing that google.com is sometimes the best interface to some sites too, as some sites are really hard to manouver but it's really easy then to make up few words that will take you straight where you want on that site.

the less there is the better usually. ads should not be getting too much space and useless bloating by providing links to other pages of the same provider(that have nothing to do with the content) are usually useless on every page.

in fact these 'navigational' bars sometimes make the navigating much more difficult, since they tend to make it so that you get everywhere from one point. now this might seem smart and useful, but would you rather have easier time finding where you are going with a room that had 300 doors, or finding where you want to be in structure where there was like 4 doors from every room with signs saying what are you going towards..

Re:Easy

[aster_ken]

I totally agree. I search Slashdot like this:

http://www.google.com/

search terms here site:slashdot.org

Obvious to you or I, but I'm hoping this post is useful to someone.

Without a doubt

[Loosewire]

Google - even their ads are clean and not obtrusive.

Gripe

[gehrehmee]

Off hand, I'd say that site's not all that hot. The site doesn't even vary its layout with the width of the window, which means it not only wastes most of the available space on my big monitor, but is completely useless on handleld displays.

I think we can set the bar a little higher than that don't you?

Clean Design?

[DarkBlack]

This site is broken in a very recent build of Mozilla Firebird. I find it horrid. I hate the floating bar at the top. There is no content in the middle area, probably because it doesn't validate.

I am very displeased with the website's designer. This is all before I have even had a chance to explore the rest of the site. Sorry, your 10 seconds is up. Next Link.....

Easy for basic functionality

[dszd0g]

Don't get me wrong, google is my favorite search engine. I just don't think they deserve any awards for Web page design.

The basic features of google are easy to access, but there are a whole bunch of google features that are not available from their main page. Google has their own features page (try getting to that from the front page), but there are all sorts of third party Web pages explaining some of the "hidden" features of google. Their "Advanced search" really does not offer many of their features. A better Web page design would have a link on the front page to all their other features. Some Web sites off a site map, but I have not found one for Google.

A good user interface makes the basic functionality easy to use: google does this. But also makes the advanced functionality easy to find for those who want it: google does not do this.

Standards compliance, damn it!

[zonix]

Geez, forget clean "design"!

I'd settle for standards compliant sites. If you start there, it's harder to screw up your precious "design", unless tempted by using flash and javascript, and the like.

People, your next stop is the W3C.

z