According to Krug, simplicity is key. Yet, many designers out there are out to make a name for themselves as they design flashy websites. Most people get lost in the murkiness of the design or conventions that the designer choose to use. Krug stated that these designers do not take advantage of what is already there for them (conventions) and "feel they have been hired to do something new". That begs me to ask this question:
What is more important? The presentation of the website or the presentation of the content of the site?
Since the content is something that the user has to force themselves through, then the content should be as clear and as porcise as possible. I found it interesting of the truth of the statement "We don't read pages. We scan them." In this extremely fast paced world of ours, designers (especially of news websites) forget that a user will NOT read every single word on a page, but instead will look for the things that will catch their attention (and no not making every word attractive will help). Because we live in a fast paced world, we seem to settle with what is CLOSE to what we want. The websites are the same way, and by making the choices clear, we can make sites not as confusing as they sometimes are.
To me, designing websites seems like playing roulette with your mind. You know that people are coming to your website for its content, be it words, pictures, music, or videos, but you do not know what content they are looking for. One person may want to read a self-help article, while another person may want to watch a video. Do you put the video and article in completely separate categories, do you link the article to the video, or do you put a little box with the video on the article's page? I would say all three, but if you are running a large website, this could get very complicated, very fast. I have seen no easy answers when it comes to usability, which is what I find both interesting and aggravating at the same time.
I think you are both right.
This makes me think of class on Friday when Aero and Jessie presented their IF website. Remember how the class collectively said "wow?" (Or maybe it was just me?) The catchy creative presentation caught our attention. But, and this is by no means meant to be negative, what if we were looking for the creators of the site, or how to contact Aero and Jessie? We wouldn't have been able to because they didn't include their names on that awesome site. I think this may be Krug's point. Go ahead and be creative and amazing with your graphics and videos, but make sure to make it easy for the viewer to find what he/she is looking for. On that note, the content is just as, if not more important.