> Say what you will about performance and UX, the fact is that it has (dramatically) increased conversions and bookings.
This is what really irks me about the design industry of late. It's become an overly self-critical echo chamber of people pushing this idea of what user experience "should be", yet totally miss the critical business decisioning behind it and ignore the fact that it drives conversions.
Totally agree. I read an article the other week where a UX/UI person redesigned booking.com's front page as a case study, and while it looked nice I bet it would have made the company far less money. Of course everyone would love to have their website look like Airbnb's, but most don't have the luxury of being propped up by VC money. I think a lot of designers undervalue the importance of SEO as well.
This is what really irks me about the design industry of late. It's become an overly self-critical echo chamber of people pushing this idea of what user experience "should be", yet totally miss the critical business decisioning behind it and ignore the fact that it drives conversions.