Lots of whitespace improves readability, as does the use of a sans serif font. Deviate from either and a lot of people will hit the back button because they can't easily read your text.

A clear call to action massively improves conversion. The rectangular button in a dominant colour will increase signups by 10-20%.

960px wide because the majority of web users can see a page this wide without scrolling. For the same reason, all the important stuff on the site should fit within the first 500px vertically. a 960px grid is highly divisible and so gives you very flexible layout options with minimal hassle. There's a strong argument for 720px, but it's largely a question of browser demographics.

The links in the footer should be stuff for people who know what they're looking for, providing greater information density without added clutter. It works in large part because it's a convention, but it works nonetheless.

Familiarity matters in web design - the better people can predict where things will be, the better they can navigate.

That isn't to say that all these websites work as well as they should do, but there's only one reason to deviate from the norm - if you've tested something and found that it converts better.

The point being that unified design will pick up a unified brand. The original poster is noticing the Young Startup brand, I suppose. In time this brand will become associated withall young startups and the enotional aftertaste will dominate a/b tested behaviors.

Thus the virtue of being innovative in design. Ita not going to (necessarily) lose on a/b testing and it'll help you to avoid brand unification.

http://www.alexpoole.info/academic/literaturereview.html

and a second study:

http://www.unc.edu/~jkullama/inls181/final/serif.html

And a poll of user preferences:

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/html-email-fonts.htm

The apparent conclusion:

Serifs hsve a small-to-nonexistent effect on the readability of digital text, one way or the other.

However, other qualities like x-height and letter spacing do make a difference. In a Times New Roman vs Arial battle, Arial tends to come out on top. But that may well be because it has a larger x-height.

When you poll users on their preferences they love sans-serif fonts. But a big part of the problem is that so few serif fonts come installed in all browsers. Times New Roman seems to be a poor screen font, and Georgia is better but isn't installed everywhere. In short, the fact that we prefer sans serif fonts for the web may be an artifact of our crappy selection of web fonts.

It will be very interesting to see if and when serifs stage a comeback in the era of 300dpi displays and, more importantly, a much larger choice of fonts.

Serif fonts have the advantage that they have stronger row structure than sans-serif as the serifs act as a line.

So with the improvement of dpi in tablets happen, so will the use of serif fonts increase.

Helvetica is not an especially readable typeface for more than a few words. It works best for uses like logos, signs, posters, etc. For website copy, Verdana is a much better choice.

And aside from that, building a promotional site is hard: http://goo.gl/8OlP. There's a lot of work there that's hard for a programmer to predict in advance, given that programmers generally haven't done things like think about how to market their product to an underserved niche. Tongue somewhat in cheek.

as for the actual ui elements. i think a lot of companies out there, specifically the freelance design firms, are taking their inspiration from apple's mac os x ui elements. the gradients and button styles are very similar, and then other freelance designers will look at that and try to find ways to change or improve that even further. i think it all ultimately derives from apple though.

many designers i know of will use a css grid framework; we used grid 960. the reasoning behind the number 960 pixels is described on their web site:

"All modern monitors support at least 1024 × 768 pixel resolution. 960 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 32, 40, 48, 60, 64, 80, 96, 120, 160, 192, 240, 320 and 480. This makes it a highly flexible base number to work with."

This is the first I hear of CSS grid frameworks - I must look into them further.

Edit: By the way, your site looks great to me. I was trying to get at the thinking behind these designs, not to criticize.

They have lots of layouts on that page.

White space is a fundamental of good design.

Light gradients and thin grey lines provide subtle distinctions between content areas without overpowering the content.

A strong, obvious 'Call to Action' button in a vibrant colour encourages click through action.

Sans serif fonts work better than serifs in websites because of the inherent limitations with rendering fine details using pixels (they often also communicate 'modern').

Moving secondary links to the footer is simply good UX. They're available but out of the way.

940px (I'd say 970 actually) is the current sweet spot if you want to target the majority of people's screen resolution to provide a good experience.

(I agree with HNer... the examples you provide all look very different, but are just fairly well designed)

The folks who designed those old amber IBM terminals (that I still use at work) would have argued that:

- Black background is easy on the eyes.

- The flashing cursor draws your focus.

- The amazing bold font technology breaks up the page very nicely.

So it would appear that "good design" is just a function of the technology available.

It's not arbitrary however.

Here are some essentially inviolate principles of good design: http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gest...

For example, there's no reason why search boxes should have rounded corners - it's just an arbitrary style. But since users are familiar with rounded search boxes, using them could make your site easier to use.

That somewhat explains the trends you see in design, because when we employ a convergent design standard, it's more readily accessible in a single visit than a design that breaks away from current conventions.

It's also empirically the case that the convergent design standards represent the 'fittest'.

And I would argue that evolutionary speaking they represent 'good design' (that's my definition anyway).

It's not necessarily a bad thing that everyone follows the fashion, though. It makes it easy to quickly scan the page.

Compare loopt to, say, Flightcaster. Loopt is clean, good-looking and entirely uninformative. What does Loopt do? Why should you be eager to 'partner with' them? Flightcaster is busy, typographically sinful and yet answers the sort of questions you might have if you've never heard of Flightcaster. And you can try it right there and then.

loopt on the other hand has been around for a while and has 4 different products (loopt, star, pulse, mix). each one has a different purpose, serves different markets, and pairs up with different devices. you can imagine where the challenge is at: you have 4 things--which one do you want to say first, and how do you want to say it? and risk confusing someone by showing too much about the other 3 too quickly.

i think a better comparison is to someone like zynga or panic, where there are several products developed for several markets. it's an interesting problem when people who aren't aware of your various apps fail to understand fundamentally what your company does. google is still a search company, and their home page still shows a search box, but they don't spend any time explaining any of their other products on their home page either. and yet their products still get used.

Actually that was a pretty clear explanation from where I'm sitting.

And yeah, I've noticed that too, but I have to say it is serving to modify my aesthetic expectations - now I get jarred by websites that don't look like that. Hazard of spending too much time on HN I guess....

(Although I have been a fan of rectangular rounded buttons with white lettering since olwm, so at least I can claim I am consistent)

--

All newspapers look the same to me. I don't have designer chops to explain it clearly, but the main style is:

A whole lot of white and no other colors except in the advertisements.

They all use a lot of text to portray their information and they always use black for the text.

They all have the most noteworthy news stories on the front page and with less serious news in the back of the paper. etc...

Answering the same question w/r/t newspapers would be fascinating, and well worth an extended discussion.

Pink unicorns. Really?!

That said, it is pretty awesome. !.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060409104104/http://www.carbonm...

Back when Carbonmade was a side project.

Analogy would be how many big box stores (eg. Home Depot) routinely build next to Wal-Mart, because of course Wal-Mart, Inc. spends millions on and has "location, location, location" down to a science.

Apparently, McDonald's franchise location strategy always used to be to analyze all kinds of variables to find the most cost-effective location in a given area. Burger King's strategy was always to build right next to McDonald's.

Of course, for various game-theoretic reasons, the optimal location for competing businesses is usually right next to each other.

I always go to the same Jiffy Lube because there's a Starbucks across the street from it.

The formula is something like:

VisualImportance = AreaInPixels * BrightnessContrastToNeighbors * ColourContrastToNeighbors * ValueOfPositionOnPage

The top left of the page is more important than the bottom right. Too many colors make it difficult to control the color contrast between neighboring elements.

You should be able to squint at a page to see which things are most important.

For our business, UX is important but not absolutely critical (at least at the working proof of concept stage). Excellent design is expensive and time consuming and vital for some businesses. I felt for ours, good and clear would get us very far along--and could be done with a lower investment by using a framework (e.g. blueprint) and some commonly used design patterns.

When we know more about our users (A/B test, A/B test, etc) we'll invest increasingly more in the UI and perhaps we'll look and feel different. Although I still see us leaning heavily on frameworks, for the attendant benefits.

If you are an awesome UI designer or visualisation person in the mood to challenge us with your thinking, let me know ;)

This is what we use at http://flow.io and it works well for us. The instant visual feedback is addictive, and a lot of users click the tabs to learn more about our app. Our bounce rate is very very low. Another interesting thing about this control scheme is that users often click the tabs in the intended order (from left to right) so you can reveal what your app does in easily digestible bite-size chunks.

They don't have the luxury to be able to jump into it and spread all they have over the first page, as websites with known concepts do (news sites, video sites, forums, wikis).

So the design might look generic, but that's because as often in design, it solves a specific purpose in a way that doesnt allow too many variations. All knifes look the same.

If any quality designer wants to work with a standoff client; let me know: mmiller@agentshowroom.com

And don't waste our time with the old "A/B tested: BS. Not many startups actually do A/B testing. They just read a few articles written by other famous startup founders who did do the real work and/or tech bloggers who report on said work and apply the findings to their own sites.

My advice; look beyond the (now aging and classic) 1-3-1 and develop your own style. Of course this would require having a real designer involved at your startup which some founders miss when looking for engineering staff.

Though there has to be a balance between creativity and standardization.

Experimental designs are for start-ups with traction.

The RoR connection is from 37signals which had something to do with this design trend (but not all).

its the same with fashion ages (say black white/ubersized black serif font)

we tried to have a own look.but still not to be off shot

would appreciate feedback if we managed that or not