At what point do you stop and look around?

[IdolKnights]

I have been looking over web design on a few of the big sites and everything sticks out, from a design standpoint, as just another website in a box.

Wordpress sites all have the same feel
CMS sites follow suit to the pre packaged blocks

3 column link blocks, blog content here, designs. (2 columns too)

Examples:














To me, they all look alike. Sure, the graphics are not the same and the content within is set up a little different but as a whole, it’s the same site over and over and over.

Maybe the difference is a few of the user options but is this the absolute best we have to offer?

I have seen a few people on here request a list or links to “The best sites around” and get little to no reply. If they do get a reply it’s in the form of “It’s a matter of what you are looking for” “Do you mean converting, looking or ?”

To me the question would be a little of all the above.

Design: What sites have flawless designs. What sites have Unique designs.

Traffic: What sites pull the best traffic and bookmark well

Content: What sites have content that stands apart from the common “I’m going to start a porn site… Let me go buy a few sets” content.

User Options: Sites that offer the users more than just a blog to read. A link to see video or photos. A hapless review by a washed up editor.

If we call Google the king of Search engines and Ebay the Almighty Auction, who is the Prince of Porn?

[Xstr8guy]

JUB is the king of gay porn. And yes, they do have a similar look as other blog sites. But they obviously put a massive amount of time and effort into the site. And their forum is the busiest one around. Gay.com is on an entirely different level.

Queerclick.com, gaydemon.com, edengay.com, juicygoo.com are some of the better traffic sites that I can think of.

As for sites all looking the same, I'm not sure that is always a bad thing. Things evolve over time and the blog-like sites are what is working the best at the moment.

Some other great sites that look or feel different than the others... bananaguide.com, lavenderlounge.com, hunkhunter.com, friskyfans.org, manpics2000.com (the simplest site ever and it sends traffic!), cand.com... too many to list.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

To a certain degree I think we can expect a lot of sites to look similar not because of a lack of imagination but because certain things just work.

User-friendliness, ease of navigation, utility and function would dictate a lot of sites would end up looking quite similar and having similar set ups if that particular setup and structure was what their audience responded to best and was the most efficient.

It's possible, as well, that some surfers might quite like the consistency when moving between select sites that are similar in layout and form, finding it easy to move around and get to what they want rather than having to learn it all anew everytime they landed on a new website or get lost in someone's creativity hehe.

[Dzinerbear]

All my sites look the same because frankly there's just a certain way you need to put together a site to get search engine traffic.

Thanks God the web got over that Flash craze from five years ago. Remember that, it was insane.

Michael

[Bec]

To a certain degree I think we can expect a lot of sites to look similar not because of a lack of imagination but because certain things just work.

User-friendliness, ease of navigation, utility and function would dictate a lot of sites would end up looking quite similar and having similar set ups if that particular setup and structure was what their audience responded to best and was the most efficient.

It's possible, as well, that some surfers might quite like the consistency when moving between select sites that are similar in layout and form, finding it easy to move around and get to what they want rather than having to learn it all anew everytime they landed on a new website or get lost in someone's creativity hehe.

I have to agree with you. When checking over "new" ideas and layouts with clients, they invariably come back to wanting what is familiar. They like the links under the header and for the most part look for the links on the left sidebar. Right side still confuses a lot of older guys and they feel it distracts from where there should be a good sales spot happening.

Knowing how people view sites has been the subject of numerous studies, and sticking to tried and true keeps the surfer happy and moving to those places you really want his attention drawn to. Plus we're dealing with a rectangle - there's only so many ways to dice it, slice it and serve it up.

[gmartin]

I think that from a user/surfer perspective, design is over-rated. There are actually a variety of wordpress themes that break the traditional blogging model, but I've tried using them and I just don't find them very user-friendly in terms of logical readability. Does the surfer really care if every site has basically the same bone structure? I know that I don't. I loathe flash and anything fancy that keeps the pages from loading quickly on my high-speed connection. All I really want as a surfer and user is clean pages that are easy to navigate, easy to read and show great looking guys. Honestly, if every single page on the internet was white with black text, I'd be a very happy camper :high:

[markwolff]

If flash is done properly there should be no problem with it slowing down the page loading at all or maybe takes a second or two. It's 2007 if you have any type of decent site, that is with unique quality content, and are not cosidering site design as one of the most important aspects of your business, then you are lost, and spinning your wheels. I know with my sites my customers expect the designs of my sites to be on par with my content. That does not mean you need some crazy, flashing, carnival of a site. You need creative, easy to navigate and astheticaly pleasing site. You also need a site that will grab peoples attention, when someone clicks on a site for the first time you have about 10 seconds to get them interested. When i go to a site, that is a cookie cutter template, and looks just like 10,000 other sites, i yawn and then move on. Also any site that does not show recent additions to there site ie in a scroll update box or update page to show the site is active and being updatted with fresh content is a must. A basic design circa 2001 is fine for a review site, TGP or blog but for a pay site these days you better be comming up with a nice design that is going to stand out from the competition. After content site design is the most important aspect of running an internet business.