[willimholte]

> I can certainly see that. Do you count "main body text" as 'content' in your designs?

I make an effort to never use placeholder text that doesn't at least closely resemble the real (or intended) content. This might just be me, but I'm pretty sure it's common amongst better designers: building something around fake data is much harder than building something 'real'.

> You think such a phenomenon happens with web designers?

Absolutely.

> brainwave analysis on rats (or users :-)

If Art and HCI are on opposing ends of a spectrum of interface design I've always been a bit closer to art—so my experience with testing ends at formal user interviews and guerrilla-coffee-shop tests. It's not a stretch to imagine the big tech companies doing brainwave analysis (and I'd be thrilled to participate at any level, it's seriously cool stuff).

> design community just cargoculted it?

Like any community, designers react to the trends of their peers, but a competent designer can defend pretty much any decision, which makes it hard to tell the difference between 'doing something familiar but wrong' and 'following trends that are right'.