The Frame
We were framers, not painters. For years we've been designing the frame around the painting first. And in many cases we were designing the frame around the painting only. We were experts at decorating this frame, this space around the content, filling it with important looking links that try to seduce the visitor to take a look elsewhere. Not here. Our focus was primarily on the frame. We took pride in crafting meaningless widgets, we made sure that the header was big and filled with stuff, and we gave shape to every irrelevant detail of the navigation, the asides, the footers. Big footers. Big headers. Many, many widgets.
We were bad framers. The little space that we left in the middle of our masterpiece, the painting itself, received the least attention. If the content didn't fit we would simply make it fit. Decrease the font-size, decrease the line-height, remove words, remove sentences, remove all images, or simply cut the edges off. The content was there to fill up the empty spot in the middle of the frame. It was an illustration to justify the incredible interface we created.
There are many reasons for this way of designing things. Our collective fear for The Fold which resulted in the bizarre contradiction that everything is the most important thing. There was also the terrible marketing idea that we sould keep people on our own site at any cost, which resulted in the terrible habit of never linking to others. This nearly broke the web and we're still recovering, we have to learn how to link again. But the most important reason was, of course, that most of our content was shitty anyways. We'd better make sure that the links that get us away from this crap look inviting.
Rococo
A few years ago we collectively decided that the web wasn't something we only wanted to use at home or at work, we wanted to take it with us, and we prefered small screens to do so. The rococo frames we used to create didn't really fit on these screens in our pockets. The tiny fonts and links and buttons, all these little frills were very hard to use with our thick fingers too. Back in the eighteenth century, a good rococo frame was designed as an integral part of a complete room in rococo style. They were definitely appropriate back then, but they look weird in a modernist home. Our websites didn't just look inappropriate, they looked crazy on our new, tiny portable screens.
While our screens got smaller, our content got better. We found out that people actually care about what's inside the frame, and not so much about what's on the frame itself. Today, instead of squeezing the content into the leftover space, we start with giving form to the content, as the Dutch say. If during the design process we find out our content needs a frame around it to be accessible, we will design an appropriate frame. This can be a tiny, minimalst frame, it can be a cheap one-size-fits-all frame you buy in a mall. We might even conclude that the content we work on needs a rococo frame. Or no frame at all. It's the content that dictates the shape of the frame, not the tradition.
Car wrecks
So all of a sudden, a few years ago, we had good content. And all of a sudden we had many, many different screen sizes. At first we thought that every different screen needed its own unique content. But soon enough we realised that there were just too many screens and not enough people to create all that content. We also concluded that it was very hard, if not impossible, to conclude what somebody needs based on their device. And thus, responsive design was born.
With the first experiments in responsive design we tried to shrink our desktop sites so they would fit into small screens. This often resulted in beautiful but less functional objects, like the sculptures of John Chamberlain. Shrinking stuff can be done, but it's hard. Growing is much easier. So we started designing for tiny screens first: What fits in a small rectangle also fits in a large rectangle. But somehow on a big screen there was always room for a big logo, a big navigation and widgets.
Patterns that work on small screens work on bigger screens too. I haven't seen a classic header on recent websites anymore. And that's a good thing. Sites look simpler. There is more focus. But it's not just small screens that cause this.
Slow down
I asked a friend of mine who restores old rococo frames for the Rijks Museum. Good framers study the paintig. And they study the surroundings. And only when they understand what it's about, when they understand what the work of art is about, and when they understand the context of the surroundings of the painting, only then will they start designing their frame.
Computers and internet connections used to get faster every year. This was true as long as we wanted to use the web at home and at work. As soon as we wanted to use it while we are on the road, in trains, in our hotel room, in a café, this was not true anymore. We now use small computers that are half as fast as the desktop computers we used five years ago, with terrible network connections, and we use them all the time, everywhere. And sure, some small computers get faster too, but at the same time they get cheaper. You can now buy a phone with a good browser, but with crappy hardware for 50 euro. This will not change in the near future.
This all should result in simpler sites. Simpler means less computing power. Simpler means less assets to download. And most of all, simpler means more focus on what our visitors are here for.