d1cf9e77_erience_in_ArnoLand__July_2009__Yes_but___
[Heuristic] Aesthetic and minimalist design [Justification (From Nielsen)] Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility. [Yes but...] 
The explanation is here at odds with the heuristic. The heuristic seems to cry for everything to be a Scandinavian styled minimalist design; whereas the explanation goes on about text. The visual design should leverage the brand and ability to communicate. Gratuitous graphics are supposedly bad unless the delight the target users (think of Google's doodles on their home page). As far as minimalism, I recall Tufte who said anyone can pull information out, how you pack information into something and keep it intelligible and usable is the real challenge.
User Experience in ArnoLand: July 2009
Yes but...