[fyurien]

I need some advice or suggestions on what elements of web design can be improved so that, as the title suggests, are obvious and do not need a lot of explanation. This is pretty abstract, so any suggestions are welcome.

For example, the website is pretty straight forward and even the home page does not use much text. My goal was to be as obvious as possible. I felt that if I used too many words or had too many explanations, I was doing something wrong.

Some of the things I'm focusing on are:

1. Site Navigation. - I try to use icons that represent the idea, rather than words.

2. Links - I try to use common language like "Continue and Post..." rather than "Next Page"

3. Functions - Again, I use icons like a down or up arrow to indicate a vote up or down.

Those are some of the more basic categories, but I'm sure there are other things that can be improved. The goal for me is to have a first time visitor and actually anyone for that matter navigate and use the site without any confusion. A good example of this kind of design, like it or not, is the iPhone. Big fat icons that tell you what to do. Not much else.

Also, I've made a big effort to limit the number of clicks a user has to make to get to anything important.

Thanks, all comments are appreciated.

[haku]

Not using text has a few problems with it:

1) What may seem intuitive to you may not be intuitive to others. Many times I have used sites for lengthy periods of time, only to find out that a certain icon they have does something that I would have liked to know about, but had no idea.
2) If you aren't careful, you will end up with accessibility problems - people who are blind (or have bad eyes) navigate sites with screen readers. If your site has very little text and is mostly icons, these people are left in the dark as it were (pun intended!). It's better to use accessible text replacement methods rather than leaving out the text altogether.
3) You could take a big hit on SEO. Search engines index the text in a site. The less text you have, the less they are able to index your site. They can only see that an image exists, not what it is.

[karmedic]

Haku's points are all very good. I would add that the iPhone might not be the best comparison for what you want to do. iPhone owners use the device daily and grow accustomed to it. Most traffic to websites have a few precious seconds to capture the clicks. If your visitors have to take time to figure out where they are, where they're going, and how to get back you may defeat your goal of simplicity and lose the visitor. It's amazing what 1 word can do for an icon.

My $0.02 ... hth

[illvibe]

I agree with both of you guys. Text is not a luxury - it makes the icon clearer. You'd be surprise how many people will misinterpret small pictures to mean all kinds of things.

[JonoMarshall]

What's the purpose, an experiment?

Reminds me of Brody's type experiments where he took the meaning out of words, so they were left as abstract elements known only by the regular viewers, etc. Interesting to play with but not very "real world".

[goodwebdesigner]

I like the idea of that, however how will it play when it come to optimizing the site is another story. Apple iPhone has a nice site but they spent millions on advertising too. Nice appearance very flashy but as far as marketing would be my concern. Alt tags would help perhaps.