What's with all this bland, minimalist web design?

[SaskGuy]

It seems that every website is going for the bland, lifeless, depressing minimalist design with plain text on a white background.

Am I the only one who thinks this style (or lack thereof) is depressing and boring? Whatever happened to interesting website layouts? Most websites I go to now are all exactly the same.

[Alan]

Do you have any examples? I consider myself a minimalist and prefer something as simple as possible while aesthetically pleasing.

[Zzanimal88]

Maybe because they want it to have the bland and dull looks of Windows 8. It takes less coding and easier to maintain and change. It's only a wild guess. Have you noticed how more and more have less Bells, Whistles and Eye Candy than before and a lot more advertising than they use to have.

[Janus]

Actually, bland designs are an effective marketing tool. Why? Well, lesser and simpler designs help out the businesses that are looking to promote themselves online. How? It's simple, bland designs makes it easy for users to direct their attention on the content and the things they should be paying attention to. There are a number of web design companies like jointplan.co.uk that are following this trend. Other positive traits of websites that have bland designs including intuitive, functional and very easy to use.