No-one wants to be stuck in the naughties – so I thought I’d
give you the TOP 3 recent web design trends strutting the internet’s catwalk.
Just like with clothes, there are the pioneers and early adopters and then
slowly the pack follows. Here are some of the trends that have been around for a
few years now but are being adopted by the vast majority at the moment. Every
website I land on at the moment that has had a re-design has adopted these
three trends.
1. It’s all about
being wide and long…
Historically, web design was all about being ‘above the fold’.
The aim was to get all the information needed into the space before the bottom
of the typical screen, because “nobody likes to scroll”. Now however, with the
mass adoption of smart phones, tablets and all the ‘i’ devices, scrolling is by
far preferred over clicking. If you think about it, it is much easier to flick
your thumb up and down to see different sections of information rather than to
go on a click-journey and burrowing your way into a website’s content.
And because websites are smarter than ever, they can now dynamically ‘fill
the screen’ – and so they can go as wide as the screen they are being viewed
on. This means modern websites will be ‘full screen’, usually with a big image
taking up the majority of the viewable area.
2. Scrolling through
various zones…
The homepage of a modern website will scroll through various
‘zones’. This is to help you to visually see the different sections of
information and still get what you need quickly. These will usually be
distinguished by blocks of colour, and each section will likely be a summary
and link you through to the area you want to go. It means that the majority of
key information is now on the homepage without it feeling cluttered and
confusing.
Like with the new Digerati website, to help visitors to
remain engaged and centre on the right pieces of information, as you scroll
down some content will dynamically load or be animated to draw you eye.
See these well-known brands and how they have adopted points
1 and 2 above:
3. From mobile
versions to responsive…
We’ve harped on about this for a while at Digerati, but let
me reiterate – modern websites are responsive. This means there isn’t a separate
mobile design, instead the website design will ‘respond’ and change depending
on the screen size – from the largest desktop screen, to laptops, through the
various tablet devices, and down to the different sized mobiles. The website
design should be optimised to work on all these scales to keep the user happy.
Keep in mind, some people hold their tablet upright (as in portrait
orientation) and some hold them landscape. Some people have teeny-laptops that
they work on all day and others sit behind a screen that should really be classed as a TV.
Web designers want happy users – and the only way to please everyone is to
change the display of a website depending on the screen-size.
At Digerati, we love these new trends because they are simple,
professional and user friendly. They allow for good design and exciting new
technology to be utilised simultaneously. It brings together our love for
making things user friendly and client focused, without it needing to be ugly.
If you’d like a homepage that grabs people visually within
seconds AND keeps them because it answers their key questions, then chat to the
Digerati team about bringing your website into 2014!