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Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

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Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#11

Post by abraxasz »

I think a more relevant question should be: is a certain degree of "formulaicity" desirable or not? I believe that it is, yes. When I browse a website for the first time, I like it when it's clean and unoriginal in its presentation. First, I can find my way quickly, and second (maybe it's just an illusion) I find it less mentality taxing.

A lot of startups adopt a layout similar to that presented in the article for their website, which makes it easier to know quickly what's going on. Is it bad from a differentiation/branding point of view? Maybe, I don't know. I don't think I'm very sensitive to this, but this might be a very important point.

Take worrydream.com for instance. I checked it out yesterday, and the content of the website is absolutely fantastic (I'm a new fan of Bret Victor). But the website's design is very, very original, and it took me some time to get used to it. This is not to say that it's not good. It's different. And different requires efforts (well worth it in this case).

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#12

Post by netpenthe »

it is all fashion, things come into fashion then they go out.

then they come back in.

there was an old Mad magazine that had this with cars:

  1. first the cars were all chrome with a little bit of glass

  2. then the glass got bigger and bigger

  3. eventually the cars were all glass with a little bit of chrome

  4. then a 'futuristic' car came along that was all chrome with only a little bit of glass

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#13

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

Pitarou wrote: post #9

You say "formulaic" like it's a bad thing! Formulaic --> Follows well-understood conventions --> Easy to make sense of --> Gets the message across better --> More sign-ups --> Profit --> Food on the table --> My kids grow up strong and healthy --> I'm more likely to propagate my genes So I'll take formulaic every time.

What a stretch!

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#16

Post by joeblau »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #15

In my mind, the main issue with modern web design is people slapping on generic Bootstrap themes without any effort.

That's what I did for http://xo9.us. Although I did change a few things, but it's basically a theme which I've seen on a few other sites.

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#17

Post by neovi »

It's like logo design: there are specific types of branding that you keep in mind (abstract, wordmark, letterform..), they're like mental models. They aid you in the development of design, so it's not "is [it] too formulaic" but "does it serve its purpose?" Does the way it's designed benefit what it's meant to do?

A lot of landing pages look the way they look because it does what it needs to do: educate about the product. The uniqueness of the web design isn't in the layout but in the hierarchy and positioning of information within the common single page -> scroll down -> sign up.

Is it lazy? Depends on the situation. Is it beautiful? You could make it so, but it commonly isn't. Does it get the job done? Pretty much all the time. I see the same template, but I get different information.

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#18

Post by MaxGabriel »

abraxasz wrote: post #11

I think a more relevant question should be: is a certain degree of "formulaicity" desirable or not? I believe that it is, yes. When I browse a website for the first time, I like it when it's clean and unoriginal in its presentation. First, I can find my way quickly, and second (maybe it's just an illusion) I find it less mentality taxing. A lot of startups adopt a layout similar to that presented in the article for t…

And even then, worrydream is pretty slow on mobile and frequently crashed my iPhone 4 running iOS 6.

Re: Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

#20

Post by programminggeek »

No, it's not. Formulas are good within reason because they give the average user a framework to navigate an application. That is why you have standard buttons, widgets, etc. in gui toolkits. It provides a consistency that people don't have to re-learn for each application.

Uniqueness has its place, but not every app should be a unique snowflake.

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