Gadgetopia

These web sites are identical — or are they?: Here’s a wonderful page that takes 10 sites — all very popular in the blogosphere — then examines them for common elements like search boxes, righthand columns, footers, etc. Degrees if incidence and dissonance are calculated and lead to interesting conculsions.

What is hence noteworthy is that all these designs resemble themselves very much. They use a panel of common element, and then place them at identical locations on their pages. Hence, the difference between one web site and another is then merely colors and pictures.

Why such isomorphism? Because, as in print design, the reader needs to be guided. Font size, for instance, tells the reader such bit is capital and such bit is trivial. This survey attempts to demonstrate this type of statement applied to web design.

Very, very much worth reading. Reminds me of some pages in the back of Jakob Nielsen’s “50 Homepages” book where he reprinted common elements (“home” links, search boxes, etc.) from the 50 sites he reviewed.