I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages. Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

Perhaps there has been some convergence towards microwave usability that I haven't experienced yet.

Microwave oven keypad controls are a terrible example: I've had some terrible troubles attempting to use ones that force you to set power level - half the time start isn't even obvious...

I bought one with a timer knob and a power knob that is mostly usable (but still poorly designed in some ways). Usable enough that I bought the same model for my parents. I would like the power level to be a slider not a digital knob, even though the knob is an improvement over a keypad.

> "I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages."

Hard agree. I had to laugh at that sentence. I realized it wasn't really a fair analogy but also just kind of going off the copywriting example above. It's interesting how helpful this kind of thing is for different disciplines.

> Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

No, but OTOH I'd be a little bit surprised and confused if someone who designed microwave oven controls wrote a self-important blog post about how skillfully they copied another's design.