Defaulty Minimalist
 

I recently got a compliment on a style I was working on, on one of those free hosted forums. The only thing I had done with that style was create a blank style, with no CSS. I had only changed three icons and added a border-radius of red and black around the categories, just to see if it would work. I was told it was very clean and easy on the eyes.

I read from some admins that they haven't yet found the style they're looking for yet. None of the ones they see, and that I'm looking at with them, are "clean" enough. Now to my eyes, these styles they're calling bust are downright bland and ordinary. Mostly they're default with a colors and icons changed. They say that they'd like to see something simpler, even simpler than default.

My question is, what are you guys looking for? Is all the CSS stripped out really what you mean when you say "clean"? To my eyes, the default, and default inspired skins are really the barest bones you can get when it comes to styling. Developers do it because they're more interested in getting the software to you than the graphics, and they know you going to customize it 99% of the time anyway. Coders do it with their sites because, and this is just my theory, because they're not really into graphic design to greater or lesser degrees. So how much "cleaner" can a site be than default? Plain white on black with a couple of colors?

sorry, but default is not "cleaner"

what they are after is usability

When you visit a site what's your main objective?

to learn or to be entertained - right?

you can't do this if the font is too small
you can't do this if no contrast exists
you can't do this if the UI is hard to learn

i can go on but you get the idea

the best design is one that targets all ages - one shouldn't need to offer hundreds of styles for their members

Well, I think there's this misconception that colors and graphics are only for younger demographic forums. I think that's an unfair generalization. I think what looks good, looks good, even if it's not your favorite or your cup of tea. I compare it to music I don't listen to, but appreciate for it's artistry. I can see a style I would never use, but can appreciate when something different has been done with it. Has nothing to do with my age. (I'm actually more inclined for a site to be colorful. And I'm old.)

But when I refer to people talking about clean styles, they're talking about just the styles. Not individual forums and the choices admins make with blocks and add-ons and such, but just the styles available to them for free or on the market. I'm seeing styles that are bare bones, a step down from default as far as detail is concerned, and they're still saying "it's not clean enough". I'm trying to determine if maybe what they define as clean, is actually mostly un-styled CSS. After all, I was told this was clean and easy on the eyes. This has two CSS classes in total. Two border-radius defined. Is that really what people who want minimal are looking for?

I'm guessing that whomever said it was "clean" was probably a person of age. Maybe even a person with vision problems.

I will say this much...
If you were to change the red/black border (into something that does not call attention) and create an identical niche forum using the default vb4 style. The stripped-white style will win over the vb4 style - that is if you just consider participation (time-on-site, number of posts, etc).

For many people that equals to SUCCESS.

The reason for this is that it's easier to use. There are no distractions - just links to content. It can't get any easier than that.

The more objects on a page the more the brain has to process that information.

For many people, it's frustrating when they don't understand how something works. Or, if it takes long to learn how something works.

People want something that is easy to use.

1. Too many images on a page distracts the reader.
2. Too many objects on a page distracts the reader.
3. Some color combinations also distracts (it depends on the reader)
4. Some designs create too many lines (horizontal/vertical) - distracts the reader.
5. Some designs create shadows in places that do not make sense - distracts the reader.

All of the above requires the brain to process what it sees.

Again, it's not about the CSS (color, etc) - it's about usability.

You can add color, increase font size, change font type, you can even add images to the page. It will still not change how minimal-clean it looks to that person.


With that said,
Minimal design does not mean a stripped down style ... It means finding the right balance and focus on what's important. You can still have a beautiful minimal style with colors and images*.

* when adding images it needs to reinforce whatever it is you want the reader to focus on

Remember that a visitor's objective is to get to the RIGHT content as quickly as possible.

I'll try to give examples as i see it:

wrong:
http://www.cnn.com/

Where am i supposed to look here? Which news are important. I'm getting bombed with informations. First thing i see are a quadrillion links. So i quickly scroll down - and what is waiting? Even more links. Horrible in my opinion.

right:
(sorry haven't found an english site fast enough, maybe someone knows one)
http://www.spiegel.de/ (for the sake of the argument please ignore the huge advertisment. i have javascript blocked so it's not there for me)

I have huge headlines and subheadlines and can easily decide which article i want to read. If the headline catches my attention i have some previewtext which i can read. As further down as i scroll as smaller the headlines are and as more informations are presented at once.

Same goes for this newssite: http://www.focus.de/


As for boards. Just from the first look an ibpboard does look a lot better and cleaner than a vb4 (at least for me that is). This has nothing to do with the colors used. It just does a way better job in getting my eyes to the points i want to see (kinda hard to explain though).


sidenote: the style you linked. i wouldn't call that clean and i am surprised someone did. :o

Haha, I have a mod called `LancerForHire - Minimalist`. It removes visual clutter on the bottom of FORUMHOME, FORUMDISPLAY, and SHOWTHREAD by overwriting those templates with the extras stripped out (e.g. what's going on, thread icon list); you can see it in action in my sig link. It gives the board a very vanilla feel, IMO.

He sure did. He even said he's hard pressed to usually giving those kinds of compliments. That's what got me thinking more on the matter. I see users, not necessarily of a given age, refer to "clean" in the sense that there's almost nothing stylized there.

I don't see a style changer, actually.

Looks like it is active on his main forum.

Okay, but cole me down on the panny sty and sine your pitty on the runny kine.

I adore the simplicity... :)

I have four images on my board index: the logotype, home icon for the breadcrumbs and transparent 1x23 / 1x90 png images for two div's, to make their background seem like it's a gradient. But that's about it, it loads like, instantly, lol.

Here are some of the screenshots, if you guys want to know how it looks like:

Board index while you're browsing as a member.
http://i.imgur.com/ZQC7k.png

As a guest.
http://i.imgur.com/WzlON.png

Forumdisplay.
http://i.imgur.com/OmoF5.jpg (sorry for the bad quality, Imgur didn't upload it as png)

Showthread.
http://i.imgur.com/2jTCd.jpg (sucky quality as well, lol)

Memberinfo.
http://i.imgur.com/lsicH.png (not finished yet)

Registration page.
http://i.imgur.com/cQ43C.png

Sorry for the smudged parts, they're NSFW.

I think the members like the style, at least no one complained about it - everything can be found easily and it's fast as hell.

P.S. It should be obvious, I use vB3.