I don't disagree with the point of the article. There are sites I don't visit simply because digesting the information presented on those sites takes too long

I don't disagree with the point of the article. There are sites I don't visit simply because digesting the information presented on those sites takes too long due to poor design choices. Having said that, the "aesthetic choices" that The Outline makes negatively affect the usability of the site, just like all of the other sites I intentionally don't visit. I'm in agreement with the other posts here: I couldn't tell if the article's presentation was supposed to be a parody or not. Based on your comment it seems like the article (and presentation) were intended to be taken seriously. If that is truly the case, then the "aesthetic choices" used greatly decrease the readability and usability of the article. If you're looking for specifics: * Narrow central column of text that leaves large, empty left and right gutters on desktop browsers; * Excessively large default font size and leading yields 1-2 sentences per screen page; * Giant paragraph breaks littered with examples referenced from the article that take away from article space; * Poor choices of color (readability) and useless animations. All of the aforementioned "aesthetic choices" decrease usability and comprehension because they take away from the reader's ability to read the article. So while you may think these are simple "aesthetic choices", they are all "usability choices" as well. An example of better choices that don't distract from reading the article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/04/economist-explains-2 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/04/ec... Note that the example I provided still has huge gutters and the font size is still too large for my liking, but I understand the compromise that was made to make one site usable for both mobile and desktop. Otherwise, the use of black-on-white, sane leading, and sane paragraph spacing means I can quickly scan and comprehend the article because there are no distractions from doing so. I can quickly read and comprehend articles on the Economist. My reading and comprehension of articles on The Outline is slower due to the aforementioned usability issues. Since my time is limited, that means I'll prefer articles from The Economist first and defer (or ignore) articles from The Outline.