Have you noticed similar styles of design content constantly popping up on your feed by different people ?

The same old platitude advice shared online 15 years ago, now keeps getting recycled daily by a different person ?

Well, you’re not the only one. It’s happening everywhere.

• On Twitter, these are long-ass boring threads that you’ll bookmark but never revisit.
• On Instagram, these are carousels that are probably stolen from some other designer.
• On LinkedIn, these are “press like for A screen, press clap for B screen” type of posts with no context provided.
• On Medium, these are a mix of all of the above written with really terrible grammar in the form of badly structured articles.

All of these posts are raking in numbers, which is great for the content creator, but what even is the point anymore ?

The Problem Of Platitude Content

Platitude in design content is the overuse of generic and already available knowledge that is often used to express a sentiment without providing any real value or insight.

For example, many posts will suggest you use an 8px grid for all your interfaces. But why ?

• What if the design style you’re going for doesn’t need it ?
• What if during the research phase, the team decided it’s okay to prioritize optical alignment over auto layout ?
• What if the layout is abstract and just, doesn’t need it ?

This is generic advice, that might or might not help in your case. Sure it's good to know about it, but maybe teach when to apply it as well ?

This is where such posts fall flat. They add little bits of value here and there, but will mostly miss the mark in helping you in a solid way.

Such posts contribute to the oversimplification and trivialization of complex design-related topics, is what I want to say.

Posts that share tips, tricks and resources need rethinking, it’s much better to explain in more detail, but that will likely not gain traction online due to people’s low attention span.

Also, how many times have these been repeated ? like I swear, I see one post on basic topics like “Inter sucks, use these instead” a week since I started designing.

Everything looks the same, in the back of my mind I know I have read something similar before but I still keep reading.

Heck, even the post design is sometimes so similar, following the same type of colors and tonality.

But is it fair to blame just the creators ? because the platforms are to be equally blamed as well.

Instagram and Tiktok promote short-form content, which puts additional pressure on creators to dumb down their posts as much as possible.

Furthermore, this contributes to a lack of originality, diversity and personality in design discourse.

If everyone is writing about whether you should name your layers or not, who will focus on other issues like Framer sweeping away Webflow’s entry-level users ????

But, Why Is There No Originality Left ?

Of course there is, there always will be.

I try my best to stay true to my real-life persona online, a big reason why my articles sound different than others.

Because writing like a generic robot with 0 personality with an AI generated or wordmark display picture won’t leave a long-lasting mark on anybody.

People don’t remember much of what they see online, your best bet to stand out from the market is to be original.

Yet, all these content creators are repeating the same old fluff that’s been said a million times before.

And that’s cause it works for them, and it will for you as well.

Most designers post content for the purpose of gaining an audience & generating business leads (my goal as well :p)

And what better than repeating what has already been proven to be successful, it’s easier to hack the algorithm this way.

Original content can take years to gain momentum, maybe you’ll never even gain any eyeballs on your work — it’s a bit risky.

But “101 design tips to skyrocket your productivity today” is going to get you that sweet-sweet engagement.

Oh also, you need to design for years to actually have something worth adding, but most people making content are fairly new to the industry repeating what they learned from someone else a week ago.

How To Avoid Such Content

Follow humans, I guess ?

What I mean from that is, follow designers whose personality is more than just their profession.

Those who find true joy in sharing and put a smile on your face each time their design shows up on your screen.

Those who are true to their craft.

Those who put their heart out in their final designs.

Those who speak less and do more.

Those who share more of their process than baseless pieces of advice.

Because at the end of the day, we should be warier of how we are spending our time and what content we are consuming.

Our digital diet shapes our brains. You won’t even realize before you subconsciously accepted someone else’s bias.

What worked for someone, is most of the time not going to work for you, unless it’s something very specific or very generic.

Ending Thoughts…

All this is a bit depressing to see. Because I know they’re just trying to play the game the way it is played.

But now is a good time to maybe change the rules, because it has become too boring. Both for the creators and consumers.

The current state of design content will only change when creators decide to become more authentic and vulnerable online, which I don’t see happening soon.

Also you’ll never see me pretend to be a design guru ever, because I am not one.

I’m just a silly teen having fun pushing pixels and writing about it online. And that’s my online brand.

Hi there 👋🏻 I’m Sharanya — a freelance UI/UX designer writing about design here.

Check my free digital products over on my Gumroad.

You can find me on Twitter, Dribbble & LinkedIn or reach out directly via email for freelance projects!