Thread by @pearsonified

The biggest shift EVER in internet user behavior has already happened.

Few website products or webmasters have made adjustments to accommodate this "new world."

A new paradigm *requires* a new approach.

When you're ready to face the truth:

diythemes.com

Nobody browses your site anymore—they click through from social media.

They click through for a reason!

• to close an information gap
• to receive value that's relevant to them
• to take a specific action based on priming from a different message (email, referral, etc)

Unfortunately, 15+ years of "blogging"—and all the design conceits associated with it—has warped our expectations as webmasters, designers, and developers.

We have reached a point where it is CRITICAL to un-think the prevailing dogma.

Nearly every element in most stock designs (WordPress Themes, especially) is a vestige of the pre-mobile era.

Sidebars, for example, offered "highly visible" real estate for the square ad placements that were once ubiquitous on influential sites.

The rise of mobile (and "responsiveness") forced many presentational tweaks, but instead of re-thinking everything—which is expensive—we mostly just shoehorned new concepts into old paradigms.

Cheaper and faster? Absolutely.

But better? Let's take a closer look...

Remember those square ad placements in sidebars? That was "prime" real estate in the pre-mobile era.

But on smartphones, the sidebar just got crammed beneath the content—waaaay down on the vertical scroll.

The result? Mobile users never saw the ads. Vendors got hosed.

This presentational mismatch between desktop and mobile environments has been the responsive bugaboo all along.

It hints at a very ugly truth:

Maybe *everything* we have needs to be redone...

Fam, that is EXPENSIVE. And the more established you are, the more expensive it is.

MOST designers and developers respond to clients' wants (which are often inaccurately described as "needs").

Because of this, wholesale refactoring was never an option.

Clients only know what they've seen—and everything they've seen is a product of the old paradigm.

With sites getting slower, more complicated, and harder to manage, EVERYONE has developed a sense of "this is deeply flawed"...

But everyone else is in the same boat, and since no one else is making significant changes, I guess it just is what it is 🤷🏾‍♀️

We've reached a point where people can acknowledge that generational change is necessary...

But it's become a giant sissy waiting game of "you first!"

You already know the truth.

Stop waiting. Start moving.

Focus.

diythemes.com

BONUS:

Although I published this page in 2011, it is becoming more relevant every day:

pearsonified.com/presentations/…

"remove all visual clutter and get directly to the point in a clear and concise manner" 🔥