Why the 'old web' is starting to crease at the edges

Let’s be honest: the traditional website journey is starting to feel a bit tired. Clicking around, navigating back and forth, scanning long pages, and piecing together an answer… it’s all beginning to look like hard work in a world where AI tools can simply give you the answer.

The benchmark has changed. People now expect digital experiences to work around them, not the other way around. They’re not being awkward; they’ve just tasted something better.

This shift is pretty clear when you look at user attitudes. That brings us neatly to the research.

What our research shows

Our Shifting States research surfaced some very clear user priorities:

Easy to find? High priority. Personalisation? Low priority.

But - and here’s the twist - what if personalisation is actually how things become easy to find? What if the simplest way to help someone… is simply to stop making them look? That’s where expectations are heading. And AI is accelerating that direction of travel at full speed.

AI Isn’t Just a Tool - It’s Redefining the Experience. 

The new mental model is pretty simple:

You tell it what you want. It understands you. It presents the right answer. In a format that makes sense. And you move on with your life.

That’s it. No guessing. No hunting. No “click, back, click again”.

Once people get used to that level of fluency, static content pages start to feel like a throwback. Steve Krug summed it up perfectly in Don’t Make Me Think: “If something requires a large investment of time - or looks like it will - it’s less likely to be used.”

And scrolling around hoping you’ve found the right page? It looks like effort. Users aren’t rejecting navigation because they dislike menus; they’re rejecting anything that feels like it’s slowing them down.

We're moving from pages to experiences

This doesn’t mean we turn every website into a talking chatbot. No one needs more of those. But it does mean we need to rethink how information is delivered. People want digital experiences that adapt to them - not flat pages that expect them to adapt to you.

Here are some practical ways that plays out:

• Give users a simple way to tell you what they’re looking for - a couple of taps, a short choice, a bit of context - then return structured, relevant content.
• Use local data to personalise automatically - if you know where they are, show them what's near them without making them dig.
• Help users continue where they left off - browsing history, favourites, saved items, recently viewed sections.
• Adopt a friendlier, warmer tone - people are getting used to conversational responses, not corporate instruction manuals.
• Break content into modular, digestible pieces instead of giant “scroll-and-pray” pages.
• Be intentional about where conversational interfaces sit - what they handle, how they differ from search, and when they should step in.
• Add interactive elements - personalised videos, dynamic summaries, micro-tools that respond to input. Static pages are becoming the least effective way to deliver value.

None of this is complicated in concept, but it changes the way we build.

The simple truth: simple experiences take serious work

The more natural and intuitive an experience feels, the harder the thinking behind it usually is. Personalisation, decisioning, modular content, adaptive logic - they all demand more than just “let’s put some copy on a page”.

But this isn’t new. Don Norman said back in 1988:

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible.”

The goal isn’t flashiness.

The goal is to remove the mental load.

In other words: when the design gets out of the way, the experience shines.

So how do you build for this new reality?

1. Identify the friction points

This is where we stop pretending everything is fine and look at the raw truth. Try asking:

Where are users consistently getting stuck? Which tasks take too many steps? What information do people constantly miss or misunderstand? Do we rely on internal language instead of user language? Are we assuming users want to read long content? Are our pages designed around what we want to say or what they want to do? Where might personalisation reduce steps or decisions?

Friction is almost always hiding in plain sight.

2. Imagine a different experience

Once you’ve spotted the gaps, you can start imagining alternatives.

Ask yourself:

What would an 11 out of 10 experience feel like for our users? How could we remove steps, not add more? How could AI or adaptive design help users faster? What would our experience look like if it worked more like the tools people now use every day? How much better could conversion, satisfaction, or retention be with a smoother journey?

This is where creativity and technology start collaborating instead of competing.

3. Prototype - properly

Wireframes alone won’t cut it here.

You need prototypes that show the logic, the personalisation, the branching, the dynamic behaviour. Many of the best prototypes now require real code or at least a technical partner to get them working enough to test.

Do this early. Do it roughly. But do it realistically.

And then test. Watch what confuses people. Watch what delights them. Let them break things. The insights will hurt a bit, but the results will improve a lot.

4. Build, release, measure, refine

Launch. Measure. Learn. Fix. Improve. Repeat forever.

User expectations will keep shifting, and your experience needs to keep up. The goal isn’t perfection - it’s momentum.

Why this matters (right now)

Your users aren’t comparing you to your competitors anymore. They’re comparing you to AI tools that give them answers in seconds.

That’s the standard. That’s the context. That’s the gap you’re closing.

When your digital experience feels adaptive, human and responsive, it earns trust. When it feels static, rigid or outdated, it loses people quickly — even if your content is great.

This shift isn’t about trends. It’s about behaviour. And behaviour always wins.

A final thought

Your users aren’t comparing you to your competitors anymore. They’re comparing you to AI tools that give them answers in seconds.

That’s the standard. That’s the context. That’s the gap you’re closing.

When your digital experience feels adaptive, human and responsive, it earns trust. When it feels static, rigid or outdated, it loses people quickly — even if your content is great.

This shift isn’t about trends. It’s about behaviour. And behaviour always wins

Ready to invest in effortlessness?

We'll get you chatting to Andy all about UX.