Why so complicated?

Okay, sort of a rant here to no one. This past weekend I spent the better part of an hour in a particular website looking for something and finally gave up, unable to find it. The website was a mess, with no rhyme or reason as to where you would need to go. It also has a complicated forum system of some sort that left me frustrated and bewildered.

So here is my question- Why do websites and/or blogs have to be so damn complicated and unfriendly? Seriously. Doesn't anyone subscribe to the old addages of "Less is More" and "Beautiful is Simple"?

So you are a rocket scientest of HTML. Your point being?

I don't see the point of having a webpage with a ton of content, if no one knows how to find the content they are looking for. The home page is a hodge podge of pictures, affliations, cute quotes, and any other piece of flotsam and for whatever reason, the webpage owner thinks this is attractive. I think it's a headache. The other part that goes hand in hand with this- it's delibrately designed to make you go through large portions of the site in a scavenger hunt to find a specific link to what should be right on the damned navigation bar to begin with. If you are so worried people aren't going to explore your website unless you delibrately hide content, it's time for a redesign in my opinion.

And okay, since I'm bitching here, let me add that a splash page with some fancy "Flash" presentation that takes forever to load is going to have me back spacing out and going somewhere else. Sure it can be spectacular. And a butt pain on slower servers.

This seems to be a problem with blogs as well, especially the clutter factor. Now I admit, I've got some links on the side of my blog, but my entire page isn't pictures, quotes, affliations and anything else I can cram on there because blank space seems to be offensive. I've gone into blogs and had a hard time finding the post for all the clutter on there.

It can be the most stunning piece of design out there, but if your audience can't navigate it- what's the point I ask? I applaud anyone who can keep it simple and clean and easy to navigate. If nothing else, have someone who is not that internet 'saavy' take a look. If they can't get around, it stands to reason a large part of your audience can't either.