The Page Metaphor Problem

The page metaphor has overstayed its welcome in web design. While it helped users transition to a new medium, thinking of the web as “pages” fundamentally misrepresents what we’re building.

A homepage isn’t a uniform, quantifiable thing. It might be a tagline and background image (done by lunch) or a complex assembly of carousels, dynamic forms, and third-party integrations (several months). A “30,000-page university website” might actually consist of three content types and two layouts.

Project effort is better determined by the functionality and components within those pages, not by page count. The page is a useful delivery metaphor for users. It’s a misleading scope metaphor for builders.

Related: 01-atom—design-systems-over-pages, 01-molecule—atomic-design-methodology