> Are we on the right track here?
You probably mean on an intellectual level, not in terms of user adoption.
The lack of specificity about who your audience is the toughest part, intellectually, about what you’re doing. First let’s assume it’s the Everyman.
Why do people like a 680x680 picture / selfie of themselves? One reason Instagram has demographics much closer to the real world than Medium does: people already know how to express themselves and define an identity using their bodies.
The average person - who might have a 2 year college education, or read fewer than 10 books a year, or who uses fewer than 4 third party apps and websites on their phone - has a more intuitive grasp of fashion, makeup, what their hair color and race and jewelry and the setting and etc. says about them than if they tried to write something down.
What about people who like internet nostalgia? Nostalgia is kind of toxic for trying new things. That same audience also would pick a Star Wars movie over an indie movie every time. Nostalgia is the antagonist of new voices, not the friend. People think nostalgia is superficial, that it’s GIFs in the frame, but it’s defining an audience that wants the same stories, the same characters, and to stay in a middle to high school comfort zone. Kind of the opposite of what you want for someone’s crunchy blogs or wonky essays.
Otherwise, can someone have an argument about what’s the best visual design language? It’s very subjective. Websites had their moment as a medium, and now they’re out of the way in terms of delivering what a visitor came to see. People who express themselves outside their bodies, like writers, musicians, political activists, etc get a lot from the gwalb getting out of the way. Because so much is just getting your voice heard, weird websites turn off visitors far more often than it entices them. Not a very exciting opinion though.