Thank you for a very interesting article.

It is true that metrics cannot capture the essence of a good design. Clutter is just awful. I am old enough to remember the web in 1999 when popular websites were incomprehensible collages of buttons, links and descriptions. Whatever you might think of the Google behemoth now, back when we first saw it, its uncluttered simplicity was a revelation. That clean interface was like a sigh of relief.

Still, there is something to be said for using the short-hand of commonly used tropes. On websites we are used to hamburger dropdowns and nine-squares/chocolate box selection menus. Sites which defy these simple conventions are asking us to re-think every click. Yes, it’s learned rather than instinct. However, ignoring these short-hand access points risks losing buy-in from the users.

Is there not a balance to be struck here? Create easy in-roads to free you up for a more liberated design elsewhere in your software. Follow a few rules so you can break the rest.