I've never really liked material design. I don't care about your pretty icons, fancy text above (or inside) a box. Save me from your megabytes of CSS and scripts, and just give me the content. That's what I'm here for.
To author: Stop having XHR to load your images. Just load them. If I don't want them, I won't load them.
For me it was just ugly from first glace and I never warmed up to it. And convention of putting important button in the bottom right corner is still counterintuitive for me.
No. The question is: why can't every website be like gov.uk sites: with proper legibility, quick content, clearly designed and labeled for controls etc. [1-3]
Or things like BBC's Global Experience Language [4]
Because to some people (like me) the gov.uk website looks ugly and gives off a harsh "beware" vibe? Design is at least as much about achieving a certain emotional reaction as it is about legibility and clarity
That's a valid concern. Unfortunately, it looks like most of current design on the web tends to overdo emotional reactions to the detriment of legibility and clarity.
To author: Stop having XHR to load your images. Just load them. If I don't want them, I won't load them.