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Is it because websites are converging on what boosts search rank? Or maybe there is a consolidation in the frameworks used to build web sites? Perhaps users gravitate to using sites whose layouts are "familiar"?
Yes, websites really are starting to look more similar:
Over the past few years, articles and blog posts have started to ask some version of the same question: "Why are all websites starting to look the same?"
These posts usually point out some common design elements, from large images with superimposed text, to hamburger menus, which are those three horizontal lines that, when clicked, reveal a list of page options to choose from.
My colleagues Bardia Doosti, David Crandall, Norman Su and I were studying the history of the web when we started to notice these posts cropping up. None of the authors had done any sort of empirical study, though. It was more of a hunch they had.
We decided to investigate the claim to see if there were any truth to the notion that websites are starting to look the same and, if so, explore why this has been happening. So we ran a series of data mining studies that scrutinized nearly 200,000 images across 10,000 websites.
[...] This outsize power is part a larger story of consolidation in the tech industry—one that certainly could be a cause for concern. We believe aesthetic consolidation should be critically examined as well.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday May 14 2020, @08:39AM (3 children)
There's certainly nothing wrong with having control elements in a known place. It's annoying when a website decides to invent something new and unexpected. A menu should be a menu, a shopping cart should be a shopping cart. Two or three variations are fine, but it's
The trend to wasting screen space with huge images is just that: a trend. A stupid one that wastes bandwidth and valuable screenspace, and I'll be glad when some other trend replaces it. What I find surprising is the way that every designer thinks they are being "creative" and "edgy" by copying the current trend.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @03:53PM
Yeah, heaven forbid anyone do something.... creative! It should all look the same!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Thursday May 14 2020, @04:08PM
Huge images aren't just a stupid trend. They are a functional design intended to make up for a serious lack of real content.
You're right though that designers seem to think it's "creative" and "edgy" to copy that design. There's no other explanation for slapping giant stock images on the top of 1000-word essays *cough*Medium*cough*.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday May 14 2020, @10:07PM
If I'm at a functional site -- email, utilities, etc. -- I want as *much* recent information on the first page as possible. Leading a page with:
chronically poor phone staffing practicesunexpectedly high call volumes "due to COVID-19"after the fourth-fifth time one visits a site is just demanding that people who work on laptops scroll to see the information they need. In fact, it would be nice to have the option to relocate tabs, address bar, and bookmarks bar to the bottom of the browser window as well.