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I don't think the commentary being made here is that startup websites should not be flashy. Just that, maybe they don't all need to look exactly the same as eac

I don't think the commentary being made here is that startup websites should not be flashy. Just that, maybe they don't all need to look exactly the same as each other.

jsdalton 4mo ago
It seems to me the parent commenter is saying the opposite: looking exactly like each other _is_ the point. It's a form of social signaling, to indicate that a project "belongs" to the in group of high-flying successful AI hype projects. Note I'm not arguing that this is a good strategy. But given that so many people follow it I imagine it's not as bad as it appears on the surface.
- muvlon 4mo ago
  It's a bit of in-group signaling but I think, importantly, also date signaling. A 2026 hype website looks different from a 2020 hype website looks different from a 2010 hype website. Having a generic 2026 hype website look tells visitors that you're either new or update your website's design to follow current trends. They do the same with cars, where it's even more important and even more explicit. The design language has to change every couple years so that you can tell when somebody is driving a car older than 5 or so years. For example, currently we're doing blobs but with a few sharp features and muted colors. Before that it was more colorful and more metallic paint. Before that, in the 00s, it was pure blobs. Before that it was all sharp edges etc. Now sharp edges are beginning to make a comeback. That's why I don't think we'll ever have the "one true design language". Fads and trends will continue, repeating themselves to a degree but also changing in new ways.
dayjah 4mo ago
I think homogeneity is an unavoidable end game for the internet (unfortunately). At work we’ve been discussing whether to migrate off our home grown component library to Material UI. I shudder at the thought, personally. However, a compelling reason to use a ubiquitous framework is that the ubiquity means folks intuitively know how to interact with your product. Like many of us I was born into a deeply customizable Internet, all of my websites were green or red on black. They were a glorious amalgam of fixed width fonts and <blink> tags. With occasional wingdings characters for fun and games and complex <table>/<tr>/<td> tags for really epic layouts. They were l33t, honestly ^_^ But, as time goes on and more and more people use this thing, converging on the one-true-UX feels like a net good thing assuming the fundamentals are right. To some degree the LLM-ization of the Internet is essentially the end game of squashing the personality out of the Internet which bootstrap started. We’re on the cusp of spoken word being the core UX of computers with a fall back to reading the LLM transcript, neither of which benefits from <blink>
- maxweylandt 4mo ago
  Related: institutional isomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism_(sociology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism_(sociology)
- kid_cubi 4mo ago
  We're migrating our Material UI components to homemade components, since MUI doesn't cater to our needs anymore.
- hntiz 4mo ago
  > a compelling reason to use a ubiquitous framework is that the ubiquity means folks intuitively know how to interact with your product Not that I disagree with you, but I'll also offer a tradeoff. When people expect to pick up your app intuitively, it can also just mean them using the app absent-mindedly, which can mean them skipping the manual and jumping straight to trying to tie up the support lines. Whereas if your ui asks for a user's full focus up front, yes there are downsides to that but they're also more engaged.
  - NewsaHackO 4mo ago
    I guess the issue is that when someone can't use a product immediately, they have an urge to abandon it altogether, not learn how to use it.
    - preg_match 4mo ago
      It depends highly on the application. If the application domain is inherently complex and or used in business contexts, then they will have to learn how to use it regardless. Intuitiveness only works for somewhat cookie-cutter applications. Consider Excel: Excel is not intuitive to people who have not used excel. We can make it easier to use, but regardless the user will have to learn the fundamentals of a spreadsheet (and even how the data is stored in memory!) in order to successfully use excel. The reason I say users even have to understand how data is stored in memory is because of types. Dates are not strings, for example.
- 4mo ago
everforward 4mo ago
I think they sort of do, it’s a form of signaling. It’s the same game we play verbally with slang. Slang word gets made up, people use it so others know they’re in the group that uses the slang, usage spreads until it’s no longer a group indicator. You see it all the time as an age grouping. You can almost guess someone’s age by the slang they use for “good” (cool, lit, bussin, etc). This is the same. Startups invent a new UI style to separate themselves from the incumbents, incumbents eventually copy the style, cycle repeats.

I don't think the commentary being made here is that startup websites should not be flashy. Just that, maybe they don't all need to look exactly the same as each other.

jsdalton 4mo ago

It seems to me the parent commenter is saying the opposite: looking exactly like each other _is_ the point. It's a form of social signaling, to indicate that a project "belongs" to the in group of high-flying successful AI hype projects. Note I'm not arguing that this is a good strategy. But given that so many people follow it I imagine it's not as bad as it appears on the surface.

muvlon 4mo ago
It's a bit of in-group signaling but I think, importantly, also date signaling. A 2026 hype website looks different from a 2020 hype website looks different from a 2010 hype website. Having a generic 2026 hype website look tells visitors that you're either new or update your website's design to follow current trends. They do the same with cars, where it's even more important and even more explicit. The design language has to change every couple years so that you can tell when somebody is driving a car older than 5 or so years. For example, currently we're doing blobs but with a few sharp features and muted colors. Before that it was more colorful and more metallic paint. Before that, in the 00s, it was pure blobs. Before that it was all sharp edges etc. Now sharp edges are beginning to make a comeback. That's why I don't think we'll ever have the "one true design language". Fads and trends will continue, repeating themselves to a degree but also changing in new ways.

dayjah 4mo ago

I think homogeneity is an unavoidable end game for the internet (unfortunately). At work we’ve been discussing whether to migrate off our home grown component library to Material UI. I shudder at the thought, personally. However, a compelling reason to use a ubiquitous framework is that the ubiquity means folks intuitively know how to interact with your product. Like many of us I was born into a deeply customizable Internet, all of my websites were green or red on black. They were a glorious amalgam of fixed width fonts and <blink> tags. With occasional wingdings characters for fun and games and complex <table>/<tr>/<td> tags for really epic layouts. They were l33t, honestly ^_^ But, as time goes on and more and more people use this thing, converging on the one-true-UX feels like a net good thing assuming the fundamentals are right. To some degree the LLM-ization of the Internet is essentially the end game of squashing the personality out of the Internet which bootstrap started. We’re on the cusp of spoken word being the core UX of computers with a fall back to reading the LLM transcript, neither of which benefits from <blink>

maxweylandt 4mo ago
Related: institutional isomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism_(sociology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism_(sociology)
kid_cubi 4mo ago
We're migrating our Material UI components to homemade components, since MUI doesn't cater to our needs anymore.
hntiz 4mo ago
> a compelling reason to use a ubiquitous framework is that the ubiquity means folks intuitively know how to interact with your product Not that I disagree with you, but I'll also offer a tradeoff. When people expect to pick up your app intuitively, it can also just mean them using the app absent-mindedly, which can mean them skipping the manual and jumping straight to trying to tie up the support lines. Whereas if your ui asks for a user's full focus up front, yes there are downsides to that but they're also more engaged.
- NewsaHackO 4mo ago
  I guess the issue is that when someone can't use a product immediately, they have an urge to abandon it altogether, not learn how to use it.
  - preg_match 4mo ago
    It depends highly on the application. If the application domain is inherently complex and or used in business contexts, then they will have to learn how to use it regardless. Intuitiveness only works for somewhat cookie-cutter applications. Consider Excel: Excel is not intuitive to people who have not used excel. We can make it easier to use, but regardless the user will have to learn the fundamentals of a spreadsheet (and even how the data is stored in memory!) in order to successfully use excel. The reason I say users even have to understand how data is stored in memory is because of types. Dates are not strings, for example.
4mo ago

everforward 4mo ago

I think they sort of do, it’s a form of signaling. It’s the same game we play verbally with slang. Slang word gets made up, people use it so others know they’re in the group that uses the slang, usage spreads until it’s no longer a group indicator. You see it all the time as an age grouping. You can almost guess someone’s age by the slang they use for “good” (cool, lit, bussin, etc). This is the same. Startups invent a new UI style to separate themselves from the incumbents, incumbents eventually copy the style, cycle repeats.