Superficial Web Design

<br />I have always believed that Yahoo's web design is great. However, I really can't give a specific reason because there are so many websites that are much better looking than this one. The reason why I think it is good is that it is the world's largest site and it has countless world-class designers. This kind of design is the result of long-term accumulation. Therefore, identification with Yahoo's design is actually a blind reverence for authority. There are many similar websites around us.
When the idea of web standardization was introduced to China in 2004 and 2005, I began to really care about the code implementation of web pages. Before, it was Fireworks and Photoshop that helped me do these things. As I got to know more, I found that web design can be so light, elegant, free and flexible. This idea started with abandoning table layout. When I look at Yahoo's website again at this time, I can finally appreciate its wonderfulness.

Later, with the introduction of Ajax, the term user experience began to spread in the industry, and web practitioners started a new round of brainstorming, and their understanding of the web rose from being good-looking to being easy to use. When I look at Yahoo again at this time, I find that some details that I had never noticed before are invisibly providing me with convenience, and these are the designs that the designers have worked hard on. Now looking back on my previous understanding of Yahoo, it was actually superficial.
Up to now, our understanding of user experience is still superficial. Although this term is as common as fried rice, there are actually very few people who truly understand it. And I even mistakenly thought it was just a post-design touch-up. Until a few days ago, I saw the user experience model proposed in "The Elements of User Experience", which attributed user needs, functions, information architecture, and visual design to user experience. At this time, the concept of user experience gradually became clear. But at the same time, the superficial understanding of web design is also exposed.
The picture should explain the problem better:
The elements of user experience

From the picture we can see that the visual design that we used to care about the most is actually at the top level. The underlying user needs, information architecture, etc. are the foundation. If the underlying foundation is not laid well, no matter how beautiful the web page is, it will just be a decoration. However, the content in this area is basically blank now, and what is available are just some scattered and immature fragments. More importantly, these contents are very different, unlike the concept of web standards, which is applicable everywhere. Recognizing the existence of these contents is only a conceptual acceptance, and other people’s methods can only serve as a reference. It will take a long process to truly iterate understanding in practice, otherwise it will only be empty talk.
The gap between our web design and that of foreign countries is quite large in all aspects. But at the moment, it seems that the biggest gap may be at the bottom level of user experience. It includes user needs analysis and information architecture. Qianniao said that the gap between our country and foreign countries is about 5 years. You may not agree, but if you look at Case Digital Web Redesign and their level in 2002, and then compare it with your current level, you will find that the 5-year gap makes sense.

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