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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 KritonK on Thursday May 14 2020, @10:03AM (4 children)
Most modern web sites look the same to me: A long, vertically scrolling list of small, useless snippets of text in a large font, interspersed with even more useless images. Optionally, there may be some useful text links at the bottom. Thus, to navigate a modern site, I immediately scroll down to the bottom, and check if there is any useful link there. Simple, efficient, and eminently usable (not).
Supposedly, this is to make web sites usable from mobile devices, but a) most of this layout is not usable, period, and b) the usable part is in the form of a list of text links in a regular font, which is as difficult to use on a mobile device as the old-style desktop-oriented layout. But, hey, it's the latest trend, so it must be better than what we had before! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @12:12PM
> Supposedly, this is to make web sites usable from mobile devices, but…
…they look completely different on small screens and at least half-useable when compared to monstrosity you'll see on your desktop.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @01:39PM (2 children)
Don't forget loading a video behind the scenes that starts autoplaying some loudmouth commentator while you're reading. Fuck.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 14 2020, @07:50PM (1 child)
On that, why is it that our browsers are somehow no longer able to completely stop autoplay of video? It's the JavaScript, I suppose. But I think they could do better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @11:49PM
If I don't want random audio, I take the headphones off (but leave them plugged in, so the speakers are muted).