[riffraff]

I am no designer, but I would guess:

* underlined links in sidebar (we are familiar with sidebars now, we know we can click those, this looks like a page made with <frame>)

* same for top nav bar

* solid non-subtle background colors (more subtle ones or patterns these days are more common these days)

* too many font sizes

* odd intermix of rounded corners (very round!) and square ones

* unstyled textual header (if you just adopt a "visual" font for the title it will look nicer)

I don't mind it, anyway.

[jcelerier]

> * underlined links in sidebar (we are familiar with sidebars now, we know we can click those, this looks like a page made with <frame>)

please no. my parents had an internet connection since 1996, and they have SO MUCH TROUBLE with links that aren't underlined, especially on the phone. It's one of the most basic affordances of the web.

[riffraff]

Are you sure about this? I agree this is the case for generic links, but it seems odd for the navigation ones.

Basically every site I could think of (NYT, Yahoo!, BBC, Google/GMail, HuPo, Amazon) has navbars without underline.

Even the site for "Don't Make Me Think!"[0] avoids them.

[0] https://sensible.com/dont-make-me-think/