Most design decisions happen by default. You use a sticky nav because every site has a sticky nav. You link to a contact page because that’s what people do. Nobody questions whether those defaults are serving the visitor.
I question them. Here are three places I went off-template on my own site, and why.
The shrinking navigation bar
When you scroll down on my site, the nav collapses — logo and CTA only. Everything else disappears. When you scroll back up (signaling you want to navigate), the full nav expands.
The logic: if the page is worth scrolling, the nav shouldn’t compete with it. A full row of links to Pricing, Services, and FAQ at the top implies you won’t trust the content enough to scroll. Let the page earn the click.
The implementation is harder than it sounds — timing, scroll direction detection, and making sure it doesn’t fight with the content. Worth it.
The modal contact form
My contact form doesn’t live on a /contact page. It slides up from below like a sheet of paper. You fill it out, close it, and you’re back exactly where you were.
Sending someone to a separate page resets the context. They lose their place in the story. A modal keeps them in the experience — they can close it and keep reading, rather than navigating back and breaking the flow.
The engineering challenges here are real: focus traps, iOS scroll lock behavior, and making sure the form state doesn’t break on mobile. None of it is technically hard — it’s all just work that most builders skip.
The dynamic tab title
When you switch to a different tab, my site’s tab title changes to: “It’s time for a redesign.”
Six lines of JavaScript. Changes back to the normal title when you return.
This one works because it catches you at the exact moment you’re context-switching — often to look at something else on your computer. The question plants itself at the right time: while you’re looking away, thinking about other things.
The question behind all three decisions: is this here because it serves the visitor right now, or is it here because the industry got used to it?
Most defaults were built around technical constraints that no longer exist. The nav shelf, the separate contact page, the static tab title — all of these made sense at some point. They persist because nobody asked whether they still should.
Look at your site with the same question. Pick one element. Ask it.