a quibble with the master

Seth, upon reviewing eye-tracking tests of his path-breaking Squidoo site concludes:

One of the takeaways is that bad web design might actually be a good thing! Slightly bad design isn’t familiar. It’s off. It demands attention.

I just can’t go there.  i think bad design is just bad.  And irritating.  And likely to drive away donors, or visitors.

Take Squidoo — it’s so cool!  But it’s hard to figure out.

Here’s an example.  Especially with Web2.0 stuff, I start with the “About” section.  i think a lot of people do.  Take a moment to try to find the “About Squidoo” button.  Give up?  Click here or look on the bottom of the Squidoo home page.

Seth, what motivated me to work harder to find what i was looking for was not that the site is off a little — that was annoying.  It was the passion I had to learn from you.   Passion or intensity is perhaps the only thing that can overcome bad design.  But counting on passion is risky, maybe not for you, but for the rest of us.