Rutledge opens up a can of bullet point pain on the basic three-column layout, reminding us of some very unsound reasons often cited in defense of its use.

  • Centering the main content makes every thing symmetrical, but symmetry is to design as beige is to the rainbow, diminishing viewer interest and undermining information hierarchy;
  • Adds a lot of unnecessary visual noise, confounding users in their efforts to find what they want quickly;
  • Forces clients and designers to fill up those columns with far too much ancillary information;
  • Requires that users have to learn and re-learn where certain kinds of information might be located.

Rutledge then walks the walk, re-designing the interface for two major Web sites. I’m not sure his re-design of the Apple Store stands up, but that doesn’t mean his analysis of the problem and the reasoning behind his solution isn’t sound. And his re-design of MSNBC’s news page is spot on, something I’d love to see implemented by the major information portals.

Even in 2007, the ubiquity of bad design is a maxim that keeps an awful lot of designers in business. You’d think, with so much good design around, bad design would just embarrass itself to death. But no.

At the recent Future of Web Design conference in New York, Brian Fling and Keith Robinson from Blue Flavor pulled a similar stunt to Rutledge, taking the unfeasibly dreadful IMDb interface, whipping it into glorious, sparkling shape, and earning a well-deserved round of applause for their efforts.