Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic? (opens in new tab)

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).

Oh, this is not modern web design. This is just the web design pushed by San Francisco hipsters onto their brethren. None of the web sites average people visit as part of their normal life look like that nor will they ever.

No.

When you get a bit older you'll realize that design is to a great extent like fashion, full of the same ebbs and flows and trends with an underlying current of timeless utility that expresses itself in different ways depending where you look.

If there's a new quality to web design that makes it appear even more formulaic than usual I would say it's the presence of frameworks like Bootstrap that let you make something look halfway decent looking with very basic skills and a tiny amount of work. It's certainly never been as easy to get your feet wet in design.

But has innovation stopped? No, it only seems that way if you're under 25 and your brain is still developing so you don't actually have any perspective longer than the last year or two.

Whatever, I used to try to come up with really new, original stuff visually until I realized it doesn't really matter.

Most people see trendy visual design as good visual design. And why shouldn't they? For me, the important part is what a service or company allows people to do. I'm not trying push some new trailblazing thing onto people in the visual department.

I would rather follow a formula that allows me to work quickly and gets people to say "ooh that's pretty", instead of putting a bunch of thought into visual design innovation, only to have people misunderstand it.

This allows me to focus on the interaction and the content, which are the things that really matter.

Not to be an ass or anything, but isn't there some irony in "Microlancer" criticizing orignality in marketing site design while his designer site epitomizes the currently very trendy flat style? Complete with high contrast colors and a scrollspy'd comments section.

Again, not trying to be an ass. Actually I'd argue that true originality is damn near impossible to achieve, given that our ideas don't usually spring forth, fully clothed from Zeus's forehead.

No, it's not too formulaic. These "formulas" are very helpful to average web users because they are instantly able to understand a given website because it's following the norms.

Are car designs too formulaic? After all, they all have steering wheels and pedals. They all share characteristics so as to allow any driver to immediately know how to operate the vehicle without having to re-learn every component for every new car. The same is true for websites.

In fact, we've finally gotten to the point of understanding this, thanks to usability research, please don't try to reverse the trend.

It doesn't really matter. As a web-designer your job is not to invent a new aesthetic but to communicate a companys message in whatever way is most beneficial to that specific customer whether thats flat, 3d, contemporary, ugly, typographic and so on.

Spend some years doing this and you can follow any trend.

You are like a carpenter and 98% of you will stay carpenters, which is great as long as there is a need for carpenters.

But my advice would be this.

Learn design, learn to mimic, learn to be original. But don't be an artist for other peoples money unless they pay you to.

Instead on the side build a product, a company, a service a website, an experimental design lab and go crazy. And if you have the time learn to code. In fact as soon as your skills are descent learn to code.

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.

This is asking the wrong question.

Web design has generally been formulaic - but the formula changes and evolves over time.

No, this is the question to be asked: is the current formula the correct one?

My opinion is no. The giant picture-banner that takes up half (or more, depending on device) the page and conveys no useful information is annoying. The odd vertical scrolling behaviors -- almost as if in rebellion against the previous pattern of never requiring users to scroll: now we must always require them to scroll -- are frustrating, particularly for the majority of people who do not have a mac trackpad.

But that's just my opinion. One could just as easily argue that every formula is correct for its time, or else it wouldn't have come to be a common formula.

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

I think part of the problem with web design at the moment is the overuse of themes and frameworks. Where people really add no creativity to the design.

I've just spent the last 3 months trying to design a site that is original, follows conventions and is responsive.

And there is a point where your just trying to be different for different sake. We are currently ironing out problems. http://whatson.ae/

I did however try to avoid looking formulaic, but certain things just work. The layouts we have are simple and have flexibility. We are letting the content and visuals have the creativity.

I suppose that sums up my oppionion on the matter. The website design itself shouldn't be the message. Its the message your trying to pass on or the content.

I'm personally glad we are moving away from gimmicky elements. I hated having to create big shiny buttons with flashy animations because my boss thought they where exciting.

In fact - some times changing a design is detrimental to a website in massive ways. I left my old job because my previous employer wanted to change the website. After they did, the conversion rates for the site plummeted and eventually they lost a lot of traffic.

Even though the new designs where perceived as more appealing and exciting.

Certains things just work really well, thats why there more abundant.

Are cars too formulaic? There's always a steering wheel. And pedals. A gear lever. And wheels and breaks. And headlights. And......

Are books formulaic? Cover, Title, Author, Chapters, Writing, A beginning, a middle, an end?

formulaic allows us, the users, to easily begin using something new without a learning curve. Personally, I don't want every website to be innovative, requiring me to re-learn or figure out how to do something.

At the web design / development I work at, none of the websites look like that. Sure, we are not making single pages, but still. There is more to the web than single pages fronts for startups.

This is only a trend. Humans love trends.

Wait until the next guy come up with a great idea and everyone will copy it once again. See the flat design trend.

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

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.

When you get into a new car, do you want all the controls neatly laid out where you know them to be or do you want "originality & creativity". I think most people would find it less stressful and taxing and more comforted if they knew how to navigate it.

Same with a website. I always want to know where the navigation is, how to login, where the call to action is - the basics. The value isn't the website "design" - it's either the product or the content.

Web design is a communication art. When norms/formulas are created they convey a message users understand. It is easier to default on the norms so that prevails for most situations. Sometimes new norms are created with new platforms, i.e. touch, scroll changes. But in the end you are trying to communicate a message and being too different is a certain kind of message.

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.

Off topic: @mjio I was supposed to be a part of the Microlancer Beta and I've that badge on my Envato profile but it says service provider applications are temporarily closed when I click the "Start Selling" button. I'd love to try out Microlancer if you're giving away any invites.

Audience matters to the equation.

Is it product motivated? Who is the product for, a consumer or a contributor?

Is it interpretive, art, or otherwise? In other words, as a producer, do you simply have a statement or rhetorical to present?

When conversion rate is no longer relevant, the formula is staggeringly more permissive.

Same buttons, same navigation, same layout is a good thing. Users are already used to the design, and can navigate efficiently.

Same typeface, same graphics (mac book with graphs), same style (flat) is a bad thing. You won't stand out and everyone will forget you.

Bring back the blink tag!

This is very true.

I remember the days when poorly-built flash websites were the norm; they may have sucked from a usability standpoint, but they sure had the edge in originality!

kinda, but you can't tell people to just go and be different. People do what they think is cool, it's pretty effective and easy to understand. The trend setters are going to appear from time to time and make something new, but they don't need to be told to do that. Maybe people can be reminded, though, that certain parameters are flexible within a familiar design language.

I think Dieter's ten rules hit the nail on the head...

Dieter Rams's Ten Principles of "Good Design"

Good Design Is Innovative— The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good Design Makes a Product Useful—A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good Design Is Aesthetic—The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good Design Makes A Product Understandable—It clarifies the product's structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good Design Is Unobtrusive— Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.

Good Design Is Honest— It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept

Good Design Is Long-lasting— It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today's throwaway society.

Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail—Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly— Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible—Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/press_exhibitions/releases... San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Breaking conventions without good reason is bad design.

You want something un-formulaic? My favorite: bible.ca

Does the author have a little round picture of their self? (Yes.)