Web development has evolved from static HTML through jQuery and responsive design to React ecosystems. Each wave has added complexity — and now the counter-movement is here: Astro, htmx, Alpine.js. And AI makes this argument stronger, not weaker.
What Actually Matters
Every technology solves a real problem, attracts attention, gets applied beyond its original scope, hits its limits — and is then replaced by something simpler that often rediscovers the original. The goal of a website is always the same: to present the user with a solution to a problem.
To do that, you need to be found in the first place. SEO is the most obvious path — but a slow one that takes a long time to pay off. Those at the top of search results today often pay to be there. Beyond keywords and content, Google prioritizes load times and user interaction — and that’s no accident. Amazon measured in 2006 that 100ms of added load time meant 1% less revenue (Greg Linden, Make Data Useful, Stanford).
Google’s AI Overviews are projected to reduce clicks by up to 34.5% — visibility and traffic are increasingly decoupled. Appearing in an AI agent happens because you were already trusted somewhere else — Reddit, GitHub, Hacker News are the new backlinks. The key difference from SEO: AI agents decide for themselves what to surface — and they favor content that already anticipates follow-up questions.
What remains: attention is still decided by humans, and decisions are emotional. Typeface, color, spacing — that’s not aesthetics, that’s communication. But above all, emotion is created through language. Those who understand this start with writing — not with a Figma file.
Fundamentals and Minimalism Over Frameworks
Websites compete for attention. For a while, motion was the currency — animations, visual effects, everything flickering.
React and Co. were the result of more capable browsers and smartphones, and created expectations that no longer impress anyone. But attention is finite, and clarity is back in style. Design starts with the text, the colors, the typeface. Everything else — components, animations, transitions — is support, not an end in itself.
Most animations and interactions can be implemented today with plain HTML and CSS — JavaScript can be reduced to a minimum. React and even more elegant solutions like Svelte reimplement what modern browsers have long been capable of. AI writes both equally well — but HTML and CSS are faster, lighter, more maintainable. Jumping straight to React is like getting in your car to shop at the grocery store one block away. Sometimes necessary — usually not.
Understanding the User
Features don’t win customers — trust does. Those who come back do so not because of the technology, but because they feel heard. That requires knowing who your customers are and what they need. A/B testing, clear goal definition, and user identification are the real tools. Tracking shows what people do — conversations show why. Combining both means understanding your user not just as a data point, but as a person. Those who understand this don’t build features. They build relationships.
Conclusion
If you need a website that gets found, builds trust, and works — you don’t need features. You need clarity. I can help with that.