Narrow Website Evangelism

20 years ago, the web was a different place. Every byte you sent mattered because bandwidth was precious. Back then, the sites were simple, often just plain hypertext, but they worked.

That ethos stuck with me. I’m a narrow website evangelist. Narrow websites, to me, represent everything right about thoughtful, intentional design.

If there’s one thing a narrow website demands, it’s clarity. There’s no room for wandering ideas. A narrow design forces you—and your team—to make decisions upfront: What’s the story we’re telling in what order?

I’ve worked with teams who struggled to find a cohesive message. Guess what? A narrow design made that struggle painfully obvious. But that’s the beauty of it. A narrow site is like a mirror—it reflects back the chaos of indecision, daring you to simplify, to focus, to cut away the fat.

For me, that’s a feature, not a bug. When you strip things down to their essentials, you end up with a site that’s honest, impactful, and refreshingly clear. It’s not about limiting creativity; it’s about creating with purpose.

Steve Berry
Principal, Thought Merchants