All or Nothing?

Today I want to go on about web design in general, and also talk about my web site's home page.

The General Rant

It is said that the 'well rounded scientist' concept is dead, replaced by two groups - people who know everything about nothing (specialists), and people who know nothing about everything (generalists). Technically, there is no difference between the two (something times nothing is nothing), but from experience, the specialists get paid much, much, better - at least when they have a job.

It seems to me that home pages tend to follow the same trend. They either do one thing well, or they try to do everything at once - one stop shopping for all information and entertainment needs. My personal preference is utilitarianism. I want to get in and out quickly, preferably with what I was looking for. Unless, of course, what I want is a leisurely, meandering, tour of content (such as reading the newspapers, or looking for everything for sale on a web site).

For example, let's look at some leading web sites. We all hear about the web search wars between Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft (MSN). When one is at the Google web site, there is a text box, a couple of choices, and a search button. When one is at MSN or Yahoo!, he may think he is reading the supermarket special offers handout - there are boxes with text, pictures, weather info, stock market updates, regular links, bold links. Oh, and somewhere in there is also a search box. Does anyone wonder why Google is winning the search war? Ask.com is similar to Google, and I know other sites emulate the same sparse design as well, and I am sure they are much more attractive to searchers than the busy web pages of portals that also do search.

Let's take a look at some social networking sites. We have Bebo, MySpace, which look like portals with text ads, pictures, links, videos, etc. and rather busy interface. In contrast, Facebook, LinkedIn and Orkut have a functional interface, essentially a box with login/password fields and some additional information. The real sprawling mess is hidden behind that one simple door, which suits me fine. If I want to search for video clips, I would go to YouTube, Revver, or one of their equivalents. When I visit a social network site, I want to get in, do my thing, and get out. Nothing more, nothing less.

Which brings me to my web site and my design preferences.

My Web Site (www.words2u.net)

According to a comment, my site '...contains almost nothing at all, just a little text... Your blog link is a big empty space.. "Technical" is not a live link...', which does show how much one can observe by just looking. I have already apologized about the blog (WordPress died prematurely after I applied a package update), but let's take a minute to review the rest of the comment.

I subscribe to the school of thought that 'if something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly' - in other words, it is better to get something started and improve later, than wait till it is perfect, probably never. So when I decided to go on with the web page, I borrowed a table from another site, slapped on my basic content, added a php line for the dynamic date, and took it live.

I wanted a home page that lists and link to the three other site components, and have a second page with a general description. I am not sure if the design I selected is not in itself over-designed. I will see about the front end in the coming week (sorry, other commitments), and in the meantime, if you have suggestions how further simplify the page, please let me know. If I have enough time and suggestions, I will create several pages based on your comments, and let you choose the best one. Then I will use another one, of course, just to show character.