This will resonate with anybody who has been involved in website design over the past decade.If I had a pound for every time someone had used the Apple website as their favourite website example….I still wouldn’t be able to afford a pair of Nuraphone headphones. I suppose I’m not taking into account inflation or interest.Regardless, the Apple website has been the default answer for longer than I care to remember. Most clients nowadays are even aware of it being the most stereotypical answer. It’s hard to argue with. For a decade, Apple has been the benchmark of minimalist product design which was duly reflected in their website. More on this later. What we thought we’d dive into whether Apple still represents this ‘standard’. The website has evolved over time and in some aspects delivers a very different user experience.Let’s get one thing straight here. The Apple website is still very easy to use and obviously has great designers working on it. We simply want to look at how the Apple website has changed and what changes, if any, have had a negative impact. As such, we’re likely being overly critical.
The Apple brand is all encompassing
An important point to take into account is that the Apple brand permeates our lives on a daily, if not hourly basis. Thrust in to mainstream by the ipod and quickly replaced by the ubiquity of iphones, ipads and macbooks. Once a sign of a keen interest in technology, or a big bank account, Apple products have become a highly accessible accessory, whilst somehow maintaining a highly desirable status. Apple fans are not rare. You don’t become the first company with a trillion dollar valuation without a large following. The real contributing factor is the attitude of Apple supporters, not dissimilar to a technological version of Stockholm Syndrome, Apple can do very little wrong. Remove the headphone jack? There will be uproar, but immediate iphone sales won’t plummet. Sure, Apple might not be quite as desirable as it was 5 years ago and sales in the past 2 years are dropping/people aren’t upgrading at the same rate. However, I believe it’s very safe to say that the majority of individuals consider Apple’s product design to be….you guessed it, clean and minimal.Where am I going with this? Well, Apple’s website designs have always been very good. The question is whether through a combination of incredible visibility, very strong brand loyalty and the ubiquity of their products, that the Apple website is somewhat placed on a pedestal. Perhaps. It also doesn’t feel like this would change any time soon. Frustratingly, I don’t have a direct answer for this so let’s move on. I simply wanted to make the point so that it can be taken into consideration.How has the Apple website changed?
In a lot of ways the website hasn’t changed at all. They still use the product specific top level menu layout. They still use incredibly crisp imagery and punchy, staccato statements. They still evangelise product features on (reasonably lengthy) product specific pages.It should be noted that the Apple website is in a constant state of adjustment. Almost every product iteration results in a slight change to the layout of the individual product page, although they will follow a similar brand style.This is paraphrasing somewhat, but a common description of the Apple website has been, “It’s really clean, lots of whitespace and so easy to navigate”. The emphasis is usually on the minimalist, clean style. Has it changed?What we don’t want to do here is to simply comment on changes that would happen naturally as design techniques evolve over time. Compare any website to it’s 10 year old counterpart and there will be differences. We want to explore how Apple has perhaps deviated from what users considered to be such an attractive design. If you want to explore how Apple’s website has changed over the years, hop on over to Wayback Machine:Imagery
Apple’s use of imagery is almost always spot on. They let their product design do the talking. Images of people actually using their product are particularly rare, especially on major landing pages. Unlike Nike, Apple are content with their site simply featuring high res product imagery, using the iphone/ipad/macbook screen to display any particular piece of functionality on offer.This has worked spectacularly well for the tech giant over the years. Couple this with the all encompassing nature of the Apple brand and most people that visit the site cannot help but fawn over the product imagery. In our opinion it is the imagery that really sticks in people’s minds and is the primary reason why it’s everyone’s favourite website.Apple’s imagery has naturally become more and more vibrant over time. This is easily justified through the need to convey the clarity and brightness of their Retina Displays, or the triple camera system of the new iPhones. The difference this time? It feels more cramped.The imagery is not only larger but has been provided less whitespace. They have perhaps pushed the boundaries of a more immersive experience at the expense of the minimalist design they are known for. We’ll dive into the details and comparisons when discussing the iPhone 11Pro page.IPhone 11 Pro.
This is arguably where the biggest change has occurred. The individual product pages.The iPhone 11 page brought with it an evolved look and feel. It still utilised super detailed imagery (the biggest selling point and narrative around the iPhone 11 Pro is the camera so this seems like a no brainer). It still had the same topline navigation. But at least in our opinion, it feels different……and not all in a good way.Darkmode
This isn’t the first time that Apple has used ‘darkmode’ styling on individual product pages. In fact they’ve been doing it for a number of years, just look at the iPhone 7 page. The objection that we have is that when coupled with the parallax sections that have been utilised, it can often be a little difficult to focus on a particular piece of content. Furthermore, it isWe’re actually a big fan of darkmode, but it can often be more difficult to execute. Apple have fallen somewhat short of the mark here. It worked better with clearly defined sections like the iPhone 7 page.Very fast parallax
If I had to pick one the biggest issue with the current Apple website, it would be the parallax effect. It’s clear that they’ve tried to move away from a fairly static ‘sectioned’ website that displays very minimal sections such as: What they have ended up with is a page that has a confusing structure where the user doesn’t really know what they are looking at. Okay so you could argue that pretty much the whole page is about the camera, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. When I was scrolling down the page at anything above a 90 year old’s pace, it was incredibly difficult to keep track of the content.In fact, a lot of the content is simply missed. It appears and disappears in what would be traditionally be scrolling maybe 30% or 50% of a screen (I don’t know if that makes any sense). Think half a scroll with a mouse wheel, or half a scroll on a track pad. Perhaps these screenshots display it better:It all feels a but rushed. What’s more, it feels like it could have been easily avoided. Either reduce the speed at which the parallax occurs, therefore providing more time for the user to digest the on-screen content, or make it clearer when there is a new section/feature on the page.Increased visuals
There are a number of ways in which visuals have been amended. They may not be new techniques, but it does feel like they have perhaps been overused or exaggerated:- Larger imagery
- Video and parallax animation
