The Downfall of ‘What You See’ Web Design

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The Downfall of ‘What You See’ Web Design

The Gist

  • Retro revival. Nostalgic technology, like “dumb phones,” is becoming popular again, influencing modern design.
  • Consistency crisis. WYSIWYG’s challenges in scalable environments highlight the need for more robust content management systems.
  • Training transition. As WYSIWYG struggles, companies must invest in employee training on new structured authoring tools.

Keeping up with technology requires constant effort, so it’s not surprising that some people get nostalgic about the “simpler times” of older technologies.

Retro tech is now in fashion. We see rekindled enthusiasm for “dumb phones” and old-school video games.

This nostalgia extends to another iconic technology of the late 20th century: WYSIWYG. Let’s examine some of the WYSIWYG challenges. 

An image of a vintage typewriter, featuring prominently displayed round keys with letters and numbers. The black and metallic structure embodies the mechanical intricacies of a bygone era, symbolizing the WYSIWYG challenges in modern technology by contrasting the simplicity and manual interaction of the past with today's digital complexities.
Keeping up with technology requires constant effort, so it’s not surprising that some people get nostalgic about the “simpler times” of older technologies.juanrvelasco on Adobe Stock Images

WYSIWYG: In Case You Don’t Know…

WYSIWYG, the notion that What You See Is What You Get, became popular in the 1980s when Steve Jobs promised computer users they could do their own thing. By the arrival of Windows 95, WYSIWYG became the default for office docs and slides. Before long, it became the preferred approach to creating web pages, too. CMSs included “page builders” that authors could use to design their own pages.

Over time, the downsides of WYSIWYG challenges started piling up. Every web page was different. Customers were confused. Employees didn’t know what their colleagues had published. Keeping thousands of idiosyncratic web pages up-to-date became a nightmare. Allowing each employee to do their own thing wasn’t working.

When individuals create web one-off pages, each page becomes an isolated dead end. After the page is published, it’s hard to reuse or fine-tune the page’s details. WYSIWYG doesn’t scale.

Brands watched their web properties grow like weeds. More than ever, they needed to coordinate their online customer relationships at scale, communicate online everywhere and unify the customer’s experience.  

To tame the chaos, they strove to improve their content and UX processes to support consistency, repeatability, learning and improvement. They implemented style guides, design systems, content models, reusable modular content and journey planning. 

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