Convergence is an interesting term, but in my eyes (as someone who both has worked as web and product designer) the reason it happens is not sales, but because looking the same as everyone else has some benefits:
- you can rely on existing/known design methodology and tools which takes less time and is cheaper to deliver results in
- it is the safe choice. The times were some manager would admit they have no idea about design and let designers do their job is a thing of the past. So they instead tell designers to do what $marketleader is doing. They use bootstrap? So do we now!
- this homogeneity has advantages as people know how certain buttons/controls look, but that middle-ground usability will not translate well to every application, because not every application is meant for that kind of middle ground usage. That is why industrial tools used 24/7 have different designs than a tool meant for people to be used once a year. The latter needs to priorize being self-explainatory above everything else, the former needs to priorize other things like productivity, covering special use cases, durability, reliability etc. If you used the UX principle of the latter on the former you end up with something that looks okay or simple to use, but is actively torture to use 24/7.
So me pet peeve with this kind of design is that some designers think it is the right hammer to squash every problem with (with the incentives laid out above), and that leads to suffering for users.
There is a reason why you and me are currently writing on this platform, and part of it is it's non-comforming design that isn't sleek or anything, but it serves the purpose better than any typical design would — because this site is not meant to be just that.
- you can rely on existing/known design methodology and tools which takes less time and is cheaper to deliver results in
- it is the safe choice. The times were some manager would admit they have no idea about design and let designers do their job is a thing of the past. So they instead tell designers to do what $marketleader is doing. They use bootstrap? So do we now!
- this homogeneity has advantages as people know how certain buttons/controls look, but that middle-ground usability will not translate well to every application, because not every application is meant for that kind of middle ground usage. That is why industrial tools used 24/7 have different designs than a tool meant for people to be used once a year. The latter needs to priorize being self-explainatory above everything else, the former needs to priorize other things like productivity, covering special use cases, durability, reliability etc. If you used the UX principle of the latter on the former you end up with something that looks okay or simple to use, but is actively torture to use 24/7.
So me pet peeve with this kind of design is that some designers think it is the right hammer to squash every problem with (with the incentives laid out above), and that leads to suffering for users.
There is a reason why you and me are currently writing on this platform, and part of it is it's non-comforming design that isn't sleek or anything, but it serves the purpose better than any typical design would — because this site is not meant to be just that.