For a long time now, the prevailing philosophy of web design across much of the internet has been focused on minimalism. The trend has been challenged somewhat in recent years, but most up-to-date websites still feature a streamlined appearance, often accompanied by a single-page, infinite scroll interface. Unique little accoutrements such as animations and opportunities for user interaction are likely to be perceived as garish, distracting, and out-of-place.

To a certain extent, that is a sensible reaction to anything which doesn’t serve the essential functions of the website in question. Anyone who was online during the first decade of the “World Wide Web” probably remembers a glut of amateur web design leading to sites that were chock full of animations, widgets, and sound for no other reason than because those options seemed new and interesting, and were becoming widely available.

Nobody wants to go back to that era of web design. Nobody wants the internet to be noisy or chaotic. But there’s an argument to be made that in the process of moving far away from pointless experimentalism, we’ve gone too far in the other direction, making much of the internet boring and devoid of personal character.

It isn’t difficult to imagine internet users collectively pumping the breaks on their slide into a universally minimalist online landscape. As noted above, some counter-trends have already begun to emerge, with more modern web design embracing elements that break up the monotony of standard user experience. If you are planning on launching or revamping a website in the near future, you may want to embrace that, though of course you may want to do so carefully.

To the extent that we’re pushing back against minimalism, it is because we recognize that monotony is not desirable. Minimalist web design can be advantageous in making it easy for users to find information and take action, but that can come at the cost of making the site in question so beige and indistinguishable from other sites that users don’t even end up remembering where they got the information they were looking for.

On the other hand, ill-advised web design can quickly turn a boring website into one that is memorable for the wrong reasons. For instance, the on-site appearance of a chatbot may break up the monotony of scrolling for information, and it may even help a user to find the information they’re looking for; but just as easily, it could make them feel as if they are being harassed and rushed toward interaction before they’ve decided to pursue it.

Chatbots can be a valuable feature, especially now that AI is increasing their functionality. But they should probably be deployed only in situations where users have demonstrated that they want that type of assistance. In the meantime, there are other, simpler and more creative web design tools which might help to keep users interested. These include micro-animations, 3-D elements, and alternate color schemes – all of which challenge the prevailing minimalist philosophy but do so in a balanced way as long as they are used in moderation.