hat you will probably find is a landscape of sameness. Originality seems to have been sucked out of the majority of the internet. Why? Why has the internet so quickly fallen into certain patterns and simple designs? Here are four possible reasons for you to mull over while you drink your tea.

Simmons, Jannace & Stagg

RSS

It is hard to argue against RSS. RSS is the engine driving the hyper-mashup revolution. Average Joes everywhere are using RSS feeds to aggregate only the content that is relevant to them—and there has been much rejoicing. People are using RSS feeds and feed-readers to help them manage the deluge of content produced each day and only reading that which rises to the top. On its surface, all of this is good for the user, but is it the panacea we all think it is? Of course it isn’t.

The visual design of a site is not simply decoration, it is communication. The imagery, layout, and symbolism framing the content is there in a supportive, enriching role. Designers don’t play with colors simply to make something pretty, they use color, texture, typography, and myriad other techniques to enforce, enhance, and contextualize their content. In an RSS reader, all of this effort is rendered moot.

If a new author assumes the majority of her content is going to be read in a feed-reader or through RSS, then she may not take quite as much time working on a relevant visual design for her content, or may simply choose a ready-made template. This author won’t take into account the richness a compelling visual design would add to the entire experience of her site. Thus, her content will be simply that—content.

Indeed, some designers use visual means for content organization. Dave Shea’s most recent redesign, entitled organizes articles around a primary image and color palette. In this way, articles are associated with each other through visual similarity, much like in a magazine. The functionality of this organizational mechanism is unavailable in RSS and lost on the user who never visits his site.

For the user, the drawbacks are not immediately apparent. When a trained designer puts together a website, each and every decision, from the visual details to the information architecture, is selected for a reason. Shea’s musings on design are much more relevant and authoritative when consumed within the confines of his blog than when abstracted into a hermetic feed-reading environment. His site is a living, breathing example of his philosophies, practices, and techniques—the very thing addressed in his content. Yes, the content must be able to stand on its own, but that doesn’t mean content that stands on its own can’t benefit from rich visuals and intelligent organization. The feed-using subscriber has shorted himself the complete experience by reading abstracted content