Am I a Web Usability Heretic?

On Tuesday, Kent Clark posted about copywriting. He cautioned against following grammatical rules too religiously. His post reminded me of https://www.cardinalpath.com/blog/copywriting-tip-sometimes-the-worst-grammar-is-the-right-grammar, an article I wrote almost two years ago. Its theme was similar, but dealt with design rather than copywriting:

Website Usability… Without the Dogma

Before you brand me a usability heretic, know that almost three years ago, I presented the flipside of the argument. See my article on “why rules matter”:

Usability Checklists: Just Dogma?

Does this make me a flip-flopper (which is even worse than a heretic)? Not really. It’s easy enough to reconcile the two sides of this issue: To excel in any field – to truly stand out – you must break some rules. But to break the rules judiciously, you first have to understand them.