I work for a tech-forward creative agency and we build a lot of websites and therefore I think a lot about websites. I look carefully at websites when I use them or read them.

I really like this website a lot: https://internet.dev

A cool website by cool people

INTDEV is a small creative technology shop out of Seattle. I had the good fortune to meet some of the principles at this company while on a trip for a work conference. They function as a studio or small agency, doing work for hire. To show off their chops they create interesting open-source tools and projects. Their site is both a digital garden showing off their work, and a sales pitch for their talent and team.

Simple visually, not technically

The site is a long scroll. Most links go external projects or specialty sub-sites. Everything you need to know is on one page. They use a techy monospace typeface and accent the design with electric Matrix-techno-green. On the surface it looks like a very straightforward site. It could even be hand-coded without a content management system backing it. That simplicity hides a custom interactive user-interface library. It’s a subtle way to brag about their accessibility-first approach without sacrificing the richness of the modern web.

List of lists

The site is a long scroll of lists. Some of the lists contain lists. Each list can be closed to make room for other lists. There is a clear hierarchy of information for the human reader and for the AI powered bot that’s churning up this site for quick answers to your questions.

The site is long and tall, but everyone knows how to scroll. Clicking a heading turns it bright green so it’s easy to find your place as you scroll. The interaction is simple and navigation is easy, because there is none.

Questions and answers

The lists are organized as the kinds of questions you’d probably want to ask an agency before hiring them. Questions like “Who are we working for?” and “How much does it cost?” and “Can I get a discount?”

Amazing transparency. Think about how many calls they don’t have to take because the just put their price online.

Amazing clarity. Who is this? What do they do? What do I get? How does it work? All the stuff that takes up the first 20 minutes of a pitch meeting taken care of.

Who or what is a website for?

I think INTDEV has a really smart little website that anticipates the shape, form, and function of websites for the near future. Websites are still very important for companies, brands, and individuals even if their audiences never actually visit. Websites provide the canonical raw material for these systems. Without that data, there is nothing to search for and nothing to chat about.

I used to tell people (coworkers, clients) that the most important visitor to your website is Google. Today I would be more general and say “bots” - search bots, chat bots, bots.

Like it or else, people are migrating to chat-like interfaces for finding information. This is because people can simply ask a question in natural language and get an answer. Yes, the answer might be wrong, but you have to remember traditional Google delivered wrong, bad results all the time. Think back to searching the web 5 years ago; do you remember skipping to the second page of results to get past the ads and the dreck to get a real answer? Chatbots strip away the fluff. If you ask ChatGPT for a recipe you’ll get a recipe and not an SEO optimized tale about someone’s grandmother in the old country.

For website owners - especially those who are trying to sell something - your website needs to be prepared to answer visitors’ questions. Those answers are probably going to be intermediated through a chatbot. When real human visitors to your site you should afford them the same courtesy. Your site should anticipate questions a visitor (potential customer) will have in the form of a semantic headline, and then answer that question clearly and concisely. Use a bulleted list.

This where I think INTDEV is doing a great job. The clarity, structure, and (importantly) transparency makes their site very readable to search and robots. I think this what websites need to do.

Not that every website should be so minimalistic as INTDEV. Human eyes will still appreciate good and accessible design and branding. But well structured information with a meaningful hierarchy should be the first priority. I think this also mains that most brands should play down or limit flashy interactivity like scroll based animations. These things demo well but become a chore the second time a user encounters them, and the robots don’t care. I think also this implies real human customers are visiting your website after some amount of prior vetting via search and chatbots. This means they are ready to purchase or are looking for specific details. These customers are purpose driven and benefit from clear navigation and might be dissuaded by overly “creative” web experiences.