A major trend in the past few years has been an increasing focus on conversion optimization.  Companies no longer care quite so much about their website being beautiful; they care about whether it&#x27;s helping their business.<p>Indeed that&#x27;s what they have always wanted - but 5 years ago they didn&#x27;t realize they could measure that directly, and aesthetics seemed like the best proxy.<p>I, for one, blame patio11.