In Zen there are no elaborations. Zen aims directly at the true nature of things. In terms of web design this is the age where Zen take priority over the unsophisticated complexity of old fashioned web design.
Old fashioned table structures are giving way to <div>s and cascading style sheets and as they do data and content becomes available to audio readers, hand held devices and RSS [Really Simple Syndication]. With these changes comes the ability to choose operating systems and browser types with limited impact on the look and feel of the content. If the nineties were about content then this decade should be about the accessibility of content.
Table structures and old fashion HTML tags make content hard to access and harder to reuse in different contexts. In order to make the Internet more useful for business and Internet users in general the medium needs to be cost effect in terms of content development, distribution and content re-use. By subscribing to Zen type design concepts your data and valuable content is re-usable across platforms and applications, through web services or on different devices.
Accessibility is not only about content and layout it is also about graphics and the audience. I am a great proponent of surveying your target market to find out what the real speed of access to the internet is and how the content is to be viewed. What is the point of providing graphic rich content when the customer has a slow Internet connection, an old slower processor or and 800x600 screen resolution? The Internet needs to be about instant gratification.
So you only like ugly websites?
No way! When considering design, take account of the needs of the customer for content and their likely access speeds in the same way operating systems and browser types should be considered. When you know all that, then make your decisions. Macromedia Flash, especially their Communications Server can present incredibly complex data in really beautiful ways that make difficult user interface challenges simply disappear BUT form does follow function in the Zen book of web design.
Good web design, as in life progress is made my compromise, knowing the implications of these compromises allows for good decision making.
