Oh jesus, my site got submitted and is #1 on HN again. It kind of amazes me that a guide that begins with a Thich Nhat Hanh (buddhist monk) quote can bring out such heated debate.
A few things to clarify:
* The before/after flyers were taken from real life. These were printed out and tacked up to community boards and the like.
* One reason why I think the right poster is better is that it looks nicer on the surface and would therefore be more enticing for people to read to find the details. I think the left poster looks like it would be harder to find information. If an ad looks hard to decipher, then people aren't even going to bother. A lot of criticism here has to do with how the phone number doesn't stand out. If you're walking down the street and just see a giant phone number scrawled on a wall, would you call it? No. You need to have a reason to call it. I think that the flyer on the left gives passersby less reason to call.
* That said, I do need better examples, and the site needs to look less ugly. As it happens, my next project after finishing http://braveclojure.com is to revamp this site. If you're interested in hearing about the revamp, please sign up for an email reminder: http://eepurl.com/biiMZT . I'm going to add more content on actually implementing this stuff using CSS/SCSS. If you think the Clojure site is OK looking then you'll probably like the new visual mess content.
* For some reason, beginners seem to love this site as it is. Weird!!!
edit: If you have little or no experience trying to do visual design, I hope the site has encouraged you to give it a try, if only so that you can do better than I did :)
It is interesting that the choice of the left image tends to come from people judging "from the gut" and who claim no design expertise, while the case for the right image is mostly argued from first design principles, focusing on structure as a way to minimize the mental cost of reading.
It's possible that the easiest-to-read poster is not necessarily the most effective. Some studies have shown that harder to read text correlates with better retention [1]. Also, there are traffic studies suggesting that narrower streets [2] and traffic intersections with no signaling [3] may be safer. The latter examples might seem unrelated to the discussion, but what all these cases have in common is that more attention, rather than less, is being demanded from the user. It does not seem surprising that an increased level of attention improves outcomes.
I'd be curious to see the results of a rigorous A/B test with the two posters from the article.
If you are a designer, you know that clients like to find something to criticize or change; the same is true with HN commenters. Thanks for the site, which taught me some useful things. The right-hand poster is far superior and I don't know how anyone says otherwise. Information is much easier to find and it's far more beautiful.
Put your finger, or a piece of paper over the little line that protrudes, and bisects the bottom horizontal line on the
left flyer. Look away, and judge the two flyers again. The difference between the two wasen't as stark as before--for me? I'm looking at them on an ipad. (I know I will always make sure my lines match up in the future.)
I like how unpretentious the example is. Your site really says you don't need to be a master designer to tighten up your stuff, make it easier to decipher and get a better result.
A few things to clarify:
* The before/after flyers were taken from real life. These were printed out and tacked up to community boards and the like.
* One reason why I think the right poster is better is that it looks nicer on the surface and would therefore be more enticing for people to read to find the details. I think the left poster looks like it would be harder to find information. If an ad looks hard to decipher, then people aren't even going to bother. A lot of criticism here has to do with how the phone number doesn't stand out. If you're walking down the street and just see a giant phone number scrawled on a wall, would you call it? No. You need to have a reason to call it. I think that the flyer on the left gives passersby less reason to call.
* That said, I do need better examples, and the site needs to look less ugly. As it happens, my next project after finishing http://braveclojure.com is to revamp this site. If you're interested in hearing about the revamp, please sign up for an email reminder: http://eepurl.com/biiMZT . I'm going to add more content on actually implementing this stuff using CSS/SCSS. If you think the Clojure site is OK looking then you'll probably like the new visual mess content.
* For some reason, beginners seem to love this site as it is. Weird!!!
edit: If you have little or no experience trying to do visual design, I hope the site has encouraged you to give it a try, if only so that you can do better than I did :)
edit 2: Back in 2011 I wrote a blog post thanking readers, looks like it's relevant again: http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/design/cuym-thank-you/