petervidani:

Creating minimalist designs is so much more challenging than whatever the opposite of that is. In the web’s case, it usually means cutting elements or features that exist only because they’ve been around long enough and never questioned. You have to think, “does the user need this?” “Is this a want that evolved into a need? Or is it still a want.” “If this weren’t here, would anyone notice?”

Ultimately, it’s “If this were gone, would everything else benefit?”

I shouldn’t even call it minimal design, everything else should just be called excess.

Well said. I know with client work, user needs and client needs are at times very different.