Which type of website do you prefer?

*Simple Looking Websites: Websites which try not to put too much content on each page in order not to overwhelm the user. The drawback of this approach is that users might deduce from this simplicity that the website isn't as advanced as websites which follow the second approach:

*Complex Looking Websites: Websites which try to put as much content on a page as possible, heavily making use of "Web 2.0" techniques. Examples would be: www.last.fm (the new version), www.myspace.com.


What's your opinion? I'm curious as to whether I should make my own website (www.ratingfreak.com) more complex & interactive/dynamic, or more simple. I might do both (two versions and users can decide which they prefer), but it would be much more work ...

Just a thought: do you think the right side panel (on the main page, Recent Reviews without text) would look a little neater if it were aligned to the other two at the top?

Also, on Opera the text in the reviews looks a little too squashed up together vertically, more so than IE and Firefox on which it looks fine, but I think an extra pixel seperating lines could make it a little clearer on all browsers. Apart from those two points I think your site is designed excellently!
    

Edited by goose - July 15 2006 at 09:00

goose wrote: Just a thought: do you think the right side panel (on the main page, Recent Reviews without text) would look a little neater if it were aligned to the other two at the top? Also, on Opera the text in the reviews looks a little too squashed up together vertically, more so than IE and Firefox on which it looks fine, but I think an extra pixel seperating lines could make it a little clearer on all browsers. Apart from those two points I think your site is designed excellently!

Thanks for the feedback regarding my website ... I will do a major redesign this week. I will remove the "double sidebars" on the right side. I will add some of the "web 2.0" concepts that last.fm are using ...  but I will try not to clutter the pages.

BTW: You're right, I'm only testing my website with Windows Internet Explorer + Firefox ... I should use Opera every now and then to see how it looks on that browser. It's very nice, but also VERY rarely used by visitors. And most Opera-related "bugs" are often solved by the Opera developers which modify their browser to emulate Mozilla behavior - just like Microsoft are now doing with IE 7.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - July 15 2006 at 10:30

I like simple websites.

Simple all the way! Like Maddox or Google. Though there's a moddle between simple and complex, like the PA layout, which is also very nice.

Edited by The Miracle - July 15 2006 at 14:40

Simple looking websites

I like simple layouts.  I hate how it takes forever for a last.fm and myspace page to show, and they seem to encounter numerous erros.  I like a webpage to look interesting, but I like to be able to view it.

^ but you're right! I'm trying to maker it more accessible, but it's not easy as the content is very complex. When did you have a look at it? I really improved it in the last couple of weeks!

I know a few people who were confused about how to get a signature in their profile and stuff, so an idiots guide to doing that maybe worth your while.