The web has gone grey

Why do all websites look the same?

The modern web is bland and homogeneous. It all looks the same. It's mostly greyscale with one accent colour. Components all look the same. Blog posts have a big header image. Neutral, uniform, same.

Things work and are understood but we seem to have forgotten the bit about delighting users.

Are design systems to blame?

Yes and no. I think it all stared with Bootstrap, the first UI framework that really went big. The original intention was to provide a framework that the user would tailor and add their own styling. The reality was that most people used it out-of-the-box, not moving away from the default styling. This is still the same with a lot of design systems around today. They all provide systems of tokenisation but developers who are not designers just use them as provided.

Is WordPress to blame?

I'd say it's played its part. WordPress is huge. It represents a big chunk of websites. Quite how big I don't think anyone's sure what to believe any more. Just as developers tend towards the default styling in design systems, people building WordPress sites tend towards the default templates. As these templates are designed to be as flexible as possible, adaptable to any theme, they often feature the big header image as this is an easy way of changing the feel of any page. When carefully designed this works well. When just grabbing some stock photo or AI generated image, not so much.

Is social media to blame?

A few years ago, maybe more so than today, we were all obsessed with social media and growing engagement felt like the holy grail. People 'liking' our posts with links was almost more important than people actually following the links. A consequence of this was how our shared articles appeared in social media and this led to the thumbnail becoming 'essential'. Having a thumbnail would help get you noticed. More meaningless stock imagery and AI fillers.

Is capitalism to blame?

If we can build functional websites without having to pay designers then we will. If we're given design out-of-the-box we'll grab it with both hands. And as it's 'one size fits all' design, you could argue it's not really design at all. I'm not sure if this is capitalism per se but if you offer people a way to save money then they will take it.

Are we hampered by UX and accessibility concerns?

Maybe. For developers who are not experts in these fields, using a design system that has considered these things is something of a safe bet. It's one less thing to have to worry about and risk getting wrong.

Can AI help?

Right now, I would say no. I've tried out sites like Stitch, Google's UI design AI, and by default it churns out the same old uniform designs. It can probably make things more interesting if you specifically instruct it to but its natural tendency will always be towards the grey uniform as this is what it has been trained on.

What can we do?

If you want your website to stand out, have it designed properly by a professional. There are some incredibly talented designers out there.

If you can't afford that, there are still things that you can do. Change the default styling. As a very basic example, you don't have to use black text on a white background. As long as there's sufficient contrast between the content and background you can use any colour combination you like. Don't be afraid to try things. Ask for feedback. Just because you think red on cyan looks good doesn't mean the rest of us will.

Great artists steal

Spend some time looking at sites in different sectors. Step away from social media and business and explore what creative people are doing. Be inspired, take their ideas to make something yourself. You don't have to be a designer to see what has the potential to delight and adapt it for your own use.

We're not all designers but we're not all resigned to a life of grey either.