
All Websites Look the Same - brownie
http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/
======
21echoes
(Most) all websites _should_ look the same. Most browsers look the same. Most
car dashes look the same. Most newspapers look the same. Most books look the
same.

The web is not art. At least, not most of the time. Websites should only look
markedly different with good reason. For most clients, there is not a good
reason.

~~~
Spivak
Of course, then the question should be why most websites settled on this
particular style originally.

~~~
mc32
It's probably dictated to some degree by some aspect of culture. When you
visit the websites where another culture dominates, one might find things to
be different from what we're used to but similar to others where that other
culture dominates the design.

~~~
kagamine
A very good point I think, the web in your language is not always the same as
the web in other languages, for example sites like nicovideo.js do tend to be
different and carry a lot more information per page than American or European
sites.

~~~
loco5niner
nicovideo.jp, I assume?

~~~
kagamine
An easy mistake to make as s and p are right next to one-another on the qwerty
um ... I might not be paying attention.

------
unicornporn
Aaand... Looking at their landing page[1] I can see they've chosen to go with
a horizontal page layout. Because they use a non standard page layout they
have a black stripe bumping in and out of the viewport instructing the user
that they can/should scroll. This is quite a common layout among artsy
portfolio themes[2].

Has anyone ever tried to sidescroll a web page lately? On my Yosemite MBP with
latest Firefox/Chromium I just get a jitter and no movement. Sometimes the
scrollbar moves in the wrong the direction and then dies.

Moral: what is tried and tested usually works very well.

[1] [http://www.novolume.co.uk/](http://www.novolume.co.uk/)

[2] [http://demo.koken.me/#boulevard](http://demo.koken.me/#boulevard)

~~~
kalleboo
> On my Yosemite MBP with latest Firefox/Chromium I just get a jitter and no
> movement

So turns out you have to scroll up/down to get it to scroll left/right. That
makes total sense. And the speed is way off so the first time I tried it it
just flicked straight to the end...

------
mattkevan
> At times I think back to when websites were produced in Flash. For all its
> downfalls (and there were a lot) one thing was always true. Flash sites
> rarely looked the same.

The author clearly doesn't remember what it was actually like to arrive on a
Flash site, and play the fun games of 'where has the designer hidden the
navigation today?' and 'oh crap, how do I turn the sound off?'.

Design patterns are there to ensure that functionality works in a roughly
consistent manner across different sites, so instead of having to spend ages
figuring out an inscrutable interface, the user can easily buy a product or
find the information they want and get on with their day.

This is not a trend. This is lots of people slowly figuring out how content
should be structured for maximum usability in a web context. Layout
conventions will develop over time, as new ideas are incorporated and
technology changes, but that's a good thing.

As has been pointed out, books have looked roughly the same for the last few
hundred years, but design innovation has only increased, as technology and our
understanding of the conventions involved has improved.

The visual design area is more susceptible to trends - a few years ago
everything was glossy, then with 'Flat UI' everything became dark blue and a
sickly shade of green. But that's ok too. Except for the green, that was
horrible.

The danger is with 'cargo cult' design. That's where the complaint against
generic themes is valid – a style is used because it's popular without
thinking about whether it's actually the best fit for the content and what's
to be achieved.

~~~
mreiland
I fucking.hated.flash websites.

HATED.

With a passion.

Even when it was being done it was a stupid tech trick from jackass
developers, it was never a designer driven thing except as a means of doing
layouts that were you couldn't do in html at the time. and it was NEVER about
usability.

I hated that trend and thank god it didn't last very long specifically BECAUSE
it threw the users under the bus.

~~~
mattkevan
Most Flash sites were pretty bad (the first site I made was Flash, and it was
bad), but it was also used to create possibly the finest website ever made.

[http://superior-web-solutions.com/](http://superior-web-solutions.com/)

Turn the sound up, and definitely do not skip the intro. It'll bring a tear to
your eye.

~~~
angelofm
I enable flash to watch this, I will never get back this 5 minutes of my life,
DANGER DO NOT VISIT

One thing is for sure, it brought a tear to my eye.

~~~
mattkevan
Oh come on, it's not that bad - it's not like it set fire to your computer or
anything.

It's just an amazing example of what you can do with Flash, and why you
shouldn't.

------
dpcan
I could not disagree more. Don't fix what isn't broken (anymore). I believe
that after years of designing websites, we found something that works, and
works well. Consumers land on sites and see something familiar. It makes for a
comfortable and easier web. I'm all for this "standard" in web design.

~~~
onion2k
Just like we didn't need to fix the infinite-scrolling-homepage before it, or
the top-navigation-with-drop-downs design before that , or the left-side-
navigation-fixed-width design before that, or the fluid-width-with-header-and-
two-sidebars before that. The current design trend is exactly that - _a
trend_. Something else will replace it in a year or two.

The current state-of-the-art full screen background image site is no more a
standard than any other design in any other field. Design is a living,
breathing thing that evolves as our technology evolves - it moves with the
times.

However...

 _I believe that after years of designing websites, we found something that
works, and works well._

You don't need to 'believe'. If you aren't testing your designs and gathering
actionable metrics you're really missing out.

~~~
tikhonj
Testing is great, but tends to involve small local modifications. It'll get
you a site that looks the same in a different way, but won't help if you want
something a bit different.

Even if people did run tests on significant redesigns, I suspect results would
be dominated by methodological issues and a lack of power, leading to little
more than noise.

------
avodonosov
It's just one example of fashion in tech. Around ten years ago there was
another fashion for web sites - all the panels had rounded corners (and it
wasn't supported by CSS, so people created the rounded corners from pieces of
images - very unproductive waste of time).

Non-tech people, when ordering a web side, often just don't accept things
which look different than other web sites they have seen. At that times it was
difficult to convince people rounded panels with borders are not necessary.
People often are unable to judge themselves, so they rely on what others do.

There are many other examples of such unhealthy fashion: Spring framework in
Java, XML, SOAP, gray text on web pages (even despite it violates W3C
accessibility recommendations), not using tables in markup (even if I want
tabular layout), etc, etc

On the other hand I agree that uniformity can help people to consume
information, and also inventing unique design is often a waste - the content
is the most important part. Still, there are many cases of harmful fashion.

~~~
kagamine
Don't want to nit-pick but,

>gray text on web pages (even despite it violates W3C accessibility
recommendations),

the W3C don't recommend against grey text at all, they recommend that
designers consider the _contrast_ of text colour versus background colour, and
to not use _light_ grey on white. It's a matter of contrast and not a blanket
rule.

I do think it is important that we don't start making new silly rules about
dos and don'ts in web-design.

~~~
avodonosov
Contrast, you're right. And also, there are good examples of gray (low
contrast) texts - some auxiliary elements.

But when the main text - e.g. an article body - is published in low contrast
so that I need to inspect HTML and disable the color to be able to read it,
such cases make me sad :(((

:)

~~~
kagamine
I hear you, disable colour, ctrl+, ctrl+, ctrl+. OK, now I can read this!

~~~
smoe
I'm way too lazy for that, I simply close a page as soon as anything
interferes with my reading experience. Whether it is small, low contrast text,
survey or region selection popups seconds after initial page load, text
jumping once the over sized inane stock photo in the header is finally
downloaded, etc.

If the information contained is of any importance it will show up in a
readable form somewhere eventually.

------
mholt
For that matter, all books look the same too. And yet everyone knows how to
use books. You hand someone a book and they never look at you funny asking how
to get to Chapter 1.

His article is negative, but I for one have been able to traverse websites
more quickly and easily because they adhere to some now-common conventions. Of
course websites need to be original but not SO original that they require the
user to adjust their assumptions about what to expect from site while it's
loading.

~~~
kagamine
Unless the book is a manga, in which case you will find chapter 1 at the back,
and how many of us tried to read our first manga in the early 90s only to be
really confused?

I mention it not be a pedantic fool, but because the web also has global
regional variations and the linked blog post deals solely with the western web
and its layout. There is a marked difference in design and quantity of
information (and quality, both positive and negative) of the web _we_ use and
the web in other regions.

------
BinaryIdiot
Honestly I'm fine with most websites sticking to a similar layout as it helps
me navigate it faster plus it's just trendy right now so that'll pass like all
web design trends before it.

Having said that this specific layout is garbage, in my opinion and not
because of its design but because of the way it's used. It's so incredibly
rare to see a company use this type of layout without filling in every single
space with utter bullshit about generic buzzwords and it just takes up so much
space. I can't count how many start-up websites I go to and I have to scroll
down for pages just to figure out what they even sell because everything up
front is large, generic images that don't mean anything followed by lots of
very general phrases and buzzwords.

------
Phlow
I think it's safe to say, at least from my view, that Bootstrap is the reason
for it. Bootstrap made this format easy and clean, and it works well with
mobile. Websites will look like this until someone comes out with the next
thing that's easier and/or cleaner and/or works better in mobile and then a
couple years later THAT will be the format you're seeing everywhere. I don't
think this is a bad thing. At least it's clean and works well on mobile...

~~~
flockonus
Bootstrap didn't invent such websdesign, it was experimented with, learned and
improved collectively. If anything, the library implemented these (almost)
standards that were wildly used.

~~~
mreiland
He didn't say they invented it, he said they made it easy to do.

------
pun_Krawk
I take issue with the current 'standard' design, but only indirectly. I feel
like giant home screens give companies the freedom to create a great looking
webpage without any actual content - like a giant landing page. Since they all
look the same, it's easy to compare and contrast.

I can recall a number of times scrolling through the entire home page for a
company, only to still be confused about what the product actually does. I see
a huge banner image, coordinating colors, tons of whitespace, very high-level
text content...but little that says, "Our product will specifically do this,
that, and the next for you!". I have to click around to find that out. By that
time, I'm quite annoyed, and I'm not sure if your product is worth my effort.

Maybe my expectations of a home page are wrong though.

~~~
analog31
I find it's often easier to find out what a company does by doing a quick
Google search, than to figure it out from their website.

~~~
TuringTest
Me too. If the company is notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, usually the
article's first paragraph tells you what you want to know of the company much
better than its landing and About page.

------
trymas
If mentioned style works is simple, and represents/introduces product/service
well, then why not. What annoys me is when designers/developers over do it,
e.g. scroll hijacking, lots of heavy JS which introduces horrible lag, and
unnecessary pop which ruins user experience.

Sorry, but `novolume.co.uk` is stepping into the the category of over doing
it.

Huge, and super low contrast arrow buttons to switch articles. Why?

Italic serif slim and narrow font, from which my head hurts, eyes are
twitching and is not readable (and some characters are unrecognisable, e.g.
'&'). AFAIK, serif font is more readable then sans-serif, but this is not the
case.

Custom scroll bar, why the hell do you need to replicate a perfect native
widget my browser has (and this seems to be a new trend, probably replacing
scroll hijacking)?

Crazy tilted, on hover shape and colour changing (and low-res) social buttons,
why make it so complicated?

At least `novolume.co.uk` loads and renders fast, is responsive and does not
have lagging UI.

------
sdoering
He's even got a little follow up on what happened after he posted his content:

[http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/stolen-
success/](http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/stolen-success/)

------
jpswade
>At times I think back to when websites were produced in Flash. For all its
downfalls (and there were a lot) one thing was always true. Flash sites rarely
looked the same.

This is the take away line. There's a reason why we now have beautiful looking
websites to a fairly uniform standard and that after the 2000s, the usage of
Flash on Web sites declined.

The fact that "all websites look the same" should be celebrated in as much
that we've found a formula that is practical for consuming content and for the
most part, works.

------
orthoganol
He's right that most _bootstrapped_ startup websites look the same, because
they don't have designers on their team, their founders aren't trained in
design, and they don't have the money or time to really flesh out the design.
They just follow easy examples that are passable or in vogue. Or worse, maybe
they just buy a template.

But OP is wrong once you talk about startups that get money. I mean for some
well known ones, just look at Stripe, Mattermark, Branient, Mixpanel,
Filepicker, Buildzoom... these sites aren't the same at all. If you spend time
studying the design of hundreds of YC startups you'll see what I mean...
almost to the point where I wonder if YC specifically instructs their startups
not to copy other YC startups.

~~~
erik14th
Those you listed all look like the layout in the article.

------
websitescenes
After reading the comments the debate seems to be creativity vs utility. There
has to be a balance between the two. Acknowledge what works best now and then
adjust when something better comes along.

With that said, specifically in websites, I think utility should come as a
first priority. If your doing a band or artist website I can see bumping up
the creativity factor though.

------
s_dev
I found this on Intercoms blog post entitled "Some Things can't be
Wireframed". This picture reflects the meta design of many websites.
[https://blog.intercom.io/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/SquareSp...](https://blog.intercom.io/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/SquareSpace-Frame.png)

We've arrived with this design from years of design evolution and no one
person is responsible. All products seem to ultimately converge on some
optimal universal archetype. Websites, books and radio towers are no different
in this sense. The same will be true of mobile Apps someday but I don't think
its the case at the moment.

[https://blog.intercom.io/things-cant-
wireframed/](https://blog.intercom.io/things-cant-wireframed/)

------
fsloth
As in "All the books looks the same"? I see nothing wrong with finding optimal
ways to present information.

------
thenomad
So in summary, most websites have settled on a design with:

\- Headline / key attention-grab in the most visible size possible

\- Subhead / attention -> interest converter right below that

\- Attractive visual element providing emotional context occupying as much
screenspace as possible

\- Benefits propositions right below those, exactly where you'd expect them to
be if you're familiar with a Web browser

Sounds like a damn good approach to me. I mean, I'd be happy to see an even
more efficient design that measurably increased conversion rates for most
products, but if there's nothing currently out there, I'm OK with the state of
the art :)

------
totemizer
All websites should look the same, but they don't. Sadly. It's all just
information in some kind of format. A video as an mp4 or some text as... well
text in whatever way your machine stores it, but mixed with a bunch of
irrelevant other text.

But then there is "design" and then you get stuff like inconsistent search,
inconsistent site layout, you never know where to look, what to look for, you
miss things because they are placed somewhere where you are not used to look.
It's a mess.

All websites should look the same.

------
callum85
All _startup websites_ look the same. They all use this template because it
perfectly addresses their goals (grab your attention, explain a new kind of
product, convince you to sign up) while also being familiar and repeatable.
That doesn't concern or surprise me.

Other kinds of web page with a standard design style include: shopfronts,
forums and Q&A sites, search engine result pages, shopping carts, calendar
apps, video sharing sites.

Trying to look irregular just for the sake of it is bad.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
>Trying to look irregular just for the sake of it is bad.

Looking irregular because your designer can ... actually design is good.
Looking irregular because there's a better way to present your site to the
public is good.

~~~
callum85
I agree. But startups shouldn't be expected to do this. Startups are
experiments; you want to quickly determine if there's a market for the product
(and fail fast if not, so you can alter the product or move onto something
new). Being conservative with design is the perfect approach for this. If you
experiment with unproven layouts, and it fails, how do you know if the problem
was the product or your layout?

Interactive new stories, artists' portfolios, design agency websites, web
apps, and websites that are themselves art - these are all good places to push
boundaries in design. Not startup product promo pages.

------
dfragnito
It so happened I was given 5 different pens over a course of a week. Each pen
had a different interface twist, pull, slide, press, not one was of the
traditional variety of clicking the top. The following week I had to go to the
bank to sign something. The banker handed me a pen, I pulled, twisted, pushed,
and could not figure it out then I realized it was of the tradituinal variety,
and sheepishly clicked the top.

------
mjsweet
I think it's important to not mess with the customers mental model. In
particular the shopping cart pattern was created over a period of time to make
the eCommerce user experience as frictionless as possible. So when someone
wants to get through the cart, you would want as few surprises for the
customer as possible. The hamburger icon is a great example of how a UX
pattern has taken a long time to filter down into the the collective mindset
of users... "oh.. this is the menu". I still get clients asking when the funny
stack of lines are and end up adding "Menu" right next to the icon. So my
question is this: is it safe to try new things, or is it better to stick with
existing patterns we know work? Or is there a blend of both? Is it better to
let larger operations (Facebook, Google, Apple etc) to forge the way with mass
assimilation of UX patterns? I do think my first instinct is right (first
sentence), but I would love to know the experiences of other UX people about
integrating new and fresh UX patterns.

~~~
FilterSweep
Great comment. I'm finding it one answer of your ? To be more and more a
"depends on your project."

I do theoretically find a website to be a form of "artistic expression" but
unlike most other medium, there is a technically "right" few ways and many
"wrong" ways to "implement" your art. When you see a website posted here that
takes a bit of artistic liberty in its design, you will _undoubtedly_ have
some HN commenters criticize the way they did such and such.

Despite the fact the page load time is only affected by one millisecond, that
"incorrect" implementation is reason enough for some to trash the designer and
deem his "solution" inadequate.

What we then see is a world full of TALENTED designers often too afraid to try
something new.

But, isn't that the point of art? It's meant to be polarizing.

This is just personal opinion, but I'm finding it more and more necessary for
the designer of the modern web to have _multiple, concurrent projects_ as
opposed to completing one project and moving on to the next.

Currently I'm working on an athletics site which uses your now "bread and
butter" design which the OP gripes on, but I'm also working on a payment web
app which has a design that harkens to someone filling out a clipboard.

I've just this week also accepted a project to showcase a fashion designers
portfolio, and I'm swinging for far left field on that one.

If I was not working on these projects concurrently, I would not have learned
that each design has advantages and disadvantages, and I would be
pidgeonholing myself _if I didn 't give myself room to fail_

We are all still learning and growing in web development.

And our consumers are growing too. One interesting thing you mentioned is that
users are steadily growing more accustomed to the hamburger button - a quick
google search will tell you that the Hamburger wasn't so tasty in AB testing,
however, users learn. I've been a part of a reason site redesign which found
the extra click of a dropdown menu was better liked (and had more click
through) than the link bar, despite our demographic was relatively older
users!

And The hamburger menu is a great case study as it has become commonplace in
modern design. You could go with the triple bar, or do Apple's approach of a
double bar that rotates into an "X" ( [https://apple.com](https://apple.com)
), or you could do Google's three circles arranged vertically in their mobile
Chrome browser, but the concept is essentially the same.

Now, there are very talented developers on HN that _despise_ the hamburger,
and perhaps rightfully so, but you often hear crickets when an alternative is
proposed. Certainly the tabbed interface at the bottom with a "More" button
works, but it doesn't work for every case.

So sure, you will have some projects where you have to go with what is known,
but try some other projects to challenge a different approach out of you to
build up your chops.

------
MrJagil
earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10124078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10124078)

------
ohthehugemanate
Nytimes.com Brookings.edu Reddit.com JustinBiebermusic.com Facebook.com
Spotify.com Google.com

Websites Fall into functional categories. Sites within a given category look
the same. Sites about a product need a powerful visual "grabber" element that
communicates key brand points along with their name, then they need to provide
key informational points on am easy to digest manner, often segregating the
audience by interest. The big banner, three subtopics layout is a popular way
to achieve this.

But not all websites are about introducing a product. Some are about getting
immediate social interaction. Some are about exposing deep information in a
set of categories. Some are about hierarchical display of the newest possible
information. They don't tend to use the banner/three subheadings layout.

------
drikerf
I believe it's a good thing. When websites follow some kind of blueprints it
makes it a lot easier for the user since they can recognize it. The negative
side is of course that it might slow innovation, although slow isn't always
bad.

------
inDigiNeous
Who cares about the looks, really? The looks are there just to present the
content, in a way that fits all the devices that are used to view it.

Sure, you can do some artsyfantsy pantsy stuff now and then, but then again,
it's about the content too, just that the whole artsy website is the content.

And this guy has the most generic looking blog structure also, so why is he
blaming the guilt on somebody else. I'm so glad I don't have to go through
these "designed just because design" flash websites anymore and try to figure
out different structures for each page.

------
skaplun
Most organizations pick designs based on competitor research. Sometimes
there's a project manager in the middle to preach ux. Either way the site
comes out like the rest, and at times its usable

------
Kiro
Definitely prefer that layout compared to the one used on novolume.co.uk.

------
pmontra
All "normal" stairs, windows, roofs, tables, chairs look the same. There are
good reasons for stable architectural patterns. There are good reasons for web
design patterns too. Go back to the 90's and early 00's. There were so many
different styles. A few won and became the ancestors of today's styles. Many
more lost and got extinct. Sure, there are other styles that nobody thought
about that are better than what we have today. They'll get created from time
to time, copied and refined.

------
awjr
The designer seems to be harking back to a time when pretty much the only
browser was one on a laptop and you could reliably assume 764pixel width.

These days, you have no idea what is browsing your website and more than
likely it is somebody on a phone. So priorities change.

Content makers want their message in front of as many people as possible. To
achieve this, you make it work on a small screen. This brings good design
constraints and stops design for the sake of design.

------
cm2187
Let's make website like architects make buildings. It's more important to be
original than beautiful or functional. Let's put the navigation menus at the
bottom of the page and the disclaimer at the top. Let's randomize the order of
the links and elements so that every user has a unique and original experience
on every visit. In fact why use english? That's so boring. Let's use
hieroglyph!

~~~
noir_lord
> Let's use hieroglyph!

[https://fortawesome.github.io/Font-
Awesome/](https://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/) I get that your comment
was a joke (clearly) but there is a nugget of truth in it.

------
oneJob
I've often thought that porting a game engine to the browser with a suitably
robust object library and hyper-intuitive developer interface would be just
what is needed to jump-start a move away from rectangles and columns. And
doubly so now that VR is about to hit its stride. I want what "The Lawnmower
Man" promised me, dang it!

------
jbb555
Most websites are _aweful_. My monitor is almost 2000 pixels wide and they
insist in packing their whole text into about a 10cm little strip of it. I see
so many websites that want me to read about 5 words in a row when there is
space for about 30 if they weren't too lazy to use the whole screen.

I guess they prefer arty over practical.

------
AndrewKemendo
The internet is a giant A/B test. If something works, people adopt it. Once it
stops working, people move on to what works then. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

I'm starting to think that the tech community at large doesn't understand that
it's also part of humanity, and thus falls to the same cognitive traps as the
rest of society.

------
js4win
A Website needs to convey an idea in the most convenient form possible. Due to
a rise in smartphones, most websites have trended towards a mobile-first
layout - scroll to view the entire content without any redirects between
multiple pages. I would be interested to see a professional designer's
perspective on this.

------
hkmurakami
_> Generic wins out every time._

Frankly, unless you are a company where design differentiation is paramount,
it is much safer to do what everyone else is doing and be "good enough".

It's cheaper, faster, and possibly on average better for visitors to glean the
messages you want them to hear, compared to more daring designs.

------
mdpm
"All these pants have 3 holes, some sort of fastening/cinching mechanism, and
the layout's basically the same in each case!"

------
starikovs
The good side of this is that users, not hackers, can feel conmfortably when
they deel with something known and predictable.

------
task_queue
It is a current design trend, it will be different in a few years just as it
was different a few years ago.

------
desireco42
I would say, this is good part, common elements, creativity is in the content
or other solutions.

------
kenOfYugen
All websites look the same because they rely on 'best practices'. If you have
a 'better practice' go ahead and implement it, thus inspiring the best
practices to come.

That's how the human world evolves, slowly blending the old with the new.

------
gopowerranger
A lot of posts here are mixing "look the same" with "function the same".
Familiarity is fine when it comes to function but to look the same is boring.

