I think whilst it is good to make things simple for people to understand I think there does need to be easily visible explanations of what the project is doing so people understand the impact on their system and bandwidth e.t.c.

It also protects the reputation of the project as people won't start complaining about not knowing what the software was going to do.

It's a shame Apple or MS doesn't bundle BOINC in with their OS distribution & maybe put an easier to use wrapper around it, e.g. make activating WCG just like choosing a built-in screensaver...

Working in marketing and web design, your opinion is valuable. But you also know that a website like the WCG one that is a pretty big and complex one, with all the online stats and data, articles, forums etc.. It would be pretty expensive in terms of investment (money and time) if a complete redesign would be done with all the visual bells and whistles that hardware today can handle. To my knowledge there is knowhere the money to do such an investment. So the resources available must be prioritized:
- The setting up of new projects which is time consuming in terms of having the code optimized for the grid and tested.
- The technical support of all existing ones.
- The support to keep the servers running in good order etc...
- and, and, and .....
We had unending discussions about adding a few new badges or certificates (a small to admin here) but even for that it seems we do not have the necessary resources, so a complete site redesign seems to me utopic.

Now let me give my opinion and experience about the site:
When I started in 2008 as a complete newcomer the site seemed to me ok, not particularly attractive, but just right. What to expect from something that is not a commercial operation. In that sense the site is pretty well designed. WCG does not sell anything, it simply gives you an opportunity. I was expecting a clean and mean site. I had a personal wish to fulfill and was looking for information. That information was quickly found. After that as a newcomer I had little trouble, the forums are well organized, and you will find a lot of support from CA, Admin, Tech and other members, and there is a bible countinuously updated by the great Sekerob, so yes I was very quickly up and crunching. After that for regular access to personal data statistics and the forums the path is quick and short. I would love some more detailed access to statistical data of other members, or a more sophisticated search function on data but frankly what we have is good enough.

You made a point however in terms of making WCG known across the planet. This has to be done by the efforts of each of us, talking to friends, in our professional environment etc. etc. On the other side the projects themselves when articles are published, they do refer to WCG and so make some advertising. Slowly, slowly WCG will grow and benefit us all.

I am sure that if as a professional web designer you would like to contribute free of charge to a redesign and improvement of the site, I am sure that Admin would take note of that

I think the only way to change the web design is to create a second WCG site and migrate to it, one by one, when new projects start, retiring old projects and leaving them in the old site. It would take years to do, but at least it's feasible, logical and lacks complexity.
I don't think that IBM would accept a site designed externally, but who knows, it's just a web site and does not have to deal with the database or transfers.