We don’t have to be boring
2026
Some of the uniformity in digital experiences is down to technology. We were bounded by what the CMS could do, or the tech team could build, or how long something would take to implement, or whether something could scale to meet all use cases. We were guided by well-meant user testing, where if one person didn’t immediately understand an interaction, we normalised and homogenised until they did. And some of us were really into the idea of grids and ordered layouts and neat swiss typography and wanted things to feel under control.
What this led to was a wind tunnel. If you’ve ever wondered why all cars seem to look the same, the main reason is the wind tunnel. Air flow around a car is a critical factor in vehicle design. And some shapes are more optimal than others. The assumption being a weirdly shaped iconic car is fine if you want to sell 100 of them. It’s suboptimal if you want to sell 100m.
It’s hard to argue with this - it has logic on its side. Cars with maximally efficient profiles are better. They cost less to run, waste less fuel and last longer. The same is not now true for digital products. The cost of production has vastly reduced. Unique one-off builds for a single purpose are now achievable by the design that designs them. Even more than that, it’s relatively trivial to build interfaces that adapt - not just to the screen you’re using, but where you are, who you are, what you did before and what we think you’re going to want to do today. Information can come in a number of different formats now. Interactions can be as diverse as we want them to be.
Ah, but come on. Surely, at the end of the day, users want the comfort of knowing where the buy button is, how to read more, how to sign in? General usability is still hugely important. But standardising it no longer is. You can create anything, and as long as who you’re designing it for can use it, you’re good. And this was kind of always the case - if something was valuable enough, we would invest the time to make it exactly right. It might have taken slightly longer, but it was always possible. And now, designers can build their own systems, their own tools. So all the things that were bounced down to a day 2 deliverable are back on the menu again. And the day 3 things, if we want them. We are no longer constrained by what budgets and timelines and tech challenges used to present.
The handcuffs are off. Don’t be boring.