Reluctant to New Things

This thought has been triggered by On Design Thinking, an article with great points on where good design for the web has gone.

It [Design Thinking] sold out Design in an attempt to impress those in power, and in so doing lost its heart.

One thing I notice frequently is that a lot of clients are reluctant to be open and sign off on new, creative ideas, or unconventional ways of designing. There are many ways of how we can design and build things for the web, yet people want to stick with what they know. The things everyone uses for their site. Hamburger menus. Carousels. Modals. Many others. The things that have been confirmed as “working well” by the mass market. They offer security, the safety net of “so many people can’t be wrong”. This is an unfortunate fact, because there are lots of ways how things on the web could be better and less boring. Unfortunately the majority often isn’t right, they go with what they can find, out on the cheap and free design template market. As a result, the opinions on what’s best practice get skewed. Just because one solution works for one, doesn’t mean it will work as well for another.