Minimalistic or Fewer Clicks?

We have a debate going on with our Web UI team about the benefits of a minimalistic approach to content versus a full page of content so data can be reached with the least number of clicks. Have you struggled with this? If so, I would love your advice or opinion.

On one hand, we have all been taught that data should be available with the fewest number of clicks. If we ask users to dig too deeply in our web sites, we have failed and we will lose them. I honestly get this and I agree.

But (there is always a but, isn’t there?) I have also learned from numerous sources and publications about the benefits of having a single “call to action” on a page and leading users to their recommended content based on the path they choose. We have created a new flow for a specific section of our site that encourages visitors to self-select their organization – Marketing, IT or Knowledge Management. I know that self-selection is not optimal and ideally you would know your visitors and guide them to the right content, but we are going to try this self-selection idea and test our feedback.

After they self-select their organization, we present them with business problems common to that organization and then we provide practical, tested solutions to those problems. Thus, there are definitely three clicks to get to the answer – Choose your department (click #1), choose your Business Problem (click #2) and get some answers (click #3). The page designs are very simple, light on text with strong visuals that guide users to the Call to Action for each page. We reviewed the design with several teams and gathered positive feedback.

However, the designs were not well-received with the UI team. They felt that more data per page was necessary to give users multiple options and one-click access to a variety of content. To me, the page was cluttered and confusing but I cannot argue with the fact that the ‘busier’ design definitely has fewer clicks.

I need your advice. What do you think? Do you like the Google-like home page with a minimalistic design? Or do you prefer something like the Yahoo! Homepage with a plethora of content paths to take? What factors should we consider when making this decision? I know it depends on the particular message that you are trying to convey, but I would love to hear your opinions and experience.