While a portion of the web community has started using handheld devices of some sort to browse the web, very few use those exclusively and a majority still use computers most of the time.
What? Mobile internet usage surpassed computer internet usage last year. I am not going to post any links, the stats are easy to find.
Perhaps if one counts every single time someone uses his phone for web access, which is 100% irrelevant because for the most part none of these pages modern or not are really designed for phone use.
gonna have to side with KS on this one
those pages are definitely designed with mobile phone/tablet users in mind
and people do a lot of web surfing on those devices, not just checking facebook and email
my 75 year old mom hasn't used her laptop in 2 years and does everything on her ipad mini (oh the horror)
the whole scrolling up and down the page and not having to click on tabs at the top or side is 100% phone friendly
I understand that to some scrolling may be easier than touching the screen. That is not the issue. The issue is in the implementation of the concept with a totally flat all run together layout. If designers would do something to make the page more readable and fill it with more content and less fluff, it would be a lot better. The way a lot of the one page sites are, there is no segregation of content what-so-ever and it literally looks like someone wrote information on a pile of sticky notes and then randomly threw them at the screen with no concern for what landed where.
Take for example a page that has a few flaws that make it damn near useless, Etsy. Get rid of the big graphic at the top of the page (it adds nothing at all to the page and shoves the first real content almost all the way off of the opening screen, a MAJOR flaw to make users scroll to even get to the first real content), get rid of the "hand" graphic and related content (again it has no value at all and is mere space filler/fluff, more is not always better), and get rid of the "Satisfied Customers", "Passionate Sellers", "Secure Transactions" content (again it adds absolutely nothing to the page but is space filler fluff).
Make those changes and that site is 100% better. I still do not like the flatness of the site but it would be vastly improved with the clutter and fluff gone. Designers who code the new flat scheme generally seem to think that adding more content (whether it actually adds to the site or merely clutters it up with fluff) is a good thing. A well designed page is one where a user can get in, find what he wants, and get on with his day. Not one where he has to search for every little thing he is looking for such as is often the case with flat designs. Bottom line is the way they are currently implements, flat design pages are not intuitive at all.
