I'm late to the thread but would like to second this. The design choices the article criticizes aren't the consequence of mobile first design.
Actually websites looked like that in the late 2000's, before responsive design became ubiquitous.
e.g. Apple https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/apple-website
Thank you for saying this, was wondering this all along while reading the article.
They compared the information density of, what is essentially a marketing flyer or a billboard and then stated that it doesn’t convey everything: well that’s the point, an ad is meant to invoke the desire for a product in its viewer, instead of being a spec sheet.
> You don't sell portable speakers using specs, you sell it with aspirational images of it being used on a beach
I guess that works for some audiences. For me, this can be a strong signal of low quality bs.
They explicitly studied ecommerce/product pages here. The relevant metrics are which page had a higher perceived product value? Which page had a higher conversion ratio? Which page resulted in a higher NPS? Which page created a more positive brand affinity?
You don't sell portable speakers using specs, you sell it with aspirational images of it being used on a beach. Of course expanding an accordion of product details then asking "On a scale from 1-7, How well do you feel you understood the offering communicated on the page?" results in a higher survey score. If you said the more dense page converted better, then I would be surprised.
It's like designing a study on the negative impact of hard F1 race car seats, adding a bunch of foam, testing which is more comfortable, then proclaiming one is better than the other because it was rated more comfortable, when the only metric they were designed for is lap time.