Trends are driving factors for change. They push an industry forward for the better, and they happen in all creative fields. When it comes to the web, it’s a constantly evolving and changing environment where, to be successful, one needs to anticipate and adjust to trends.
Prominent online presence is crucial when it comes to marketing your business, which is why it’s extremely important to have a website that’s effective. There’s a wide spectrum of possibilities that the Internet provides you with, and that you have to consider. When done right, you can push the limits of visitor interaction and engagement. Check out these up-and-coming trends that we believe every business should monitor in the following year.
1. Mobile-first approach
Not long ago, businesses would choose to set up a business that was mainly for desktop computers, and if they wanted to enable tablet and smartphone users to view their page, they would build a separate website for mobile devices. Today, as the number of smartphone users exceeds desktop and laptop users, it’s the other way around. Websites are now designed for mobile first, then working up to devices with larger screens. One of the main web-design features today is responsiveness. Responsive design ensures optimal readability and provides an enjoyable browsing experience because the site is able to adapt intuitively to any screen size. It allows you to pay for a single website build which delivers content on any type of device effectively. Before being launched, websites need to be tested. There are different types of website testing, and you should make sure to test your site’s responsiveness in order to provide the best possible user experience.
2. Video content
The importance of video content has been on the rise during the last few years. Creating video content is affordable, allows unprecedented targeting, and is supported by automated software for everything from posting content to tracking results, but it all comes down to the fact that people just like watching video content more than reading. It’s easier to create emotion and tell your story with motion graphics, even if it’s a 30-second video. From product descriptions to infomercials, more and more companies are using video for business promotion, grabbing the attention of their target audiences. According to Business2Community statistics, 78% of Internet users watch videos weekly, while nearly 40% of all video is watched on handheld devices.
3. Authentic photography
When it comes to web design (and design in general), photography will always be a mainstay. However, people know a stock photo when they see one, finding it unoriginal and even corny. They want authenticity from the brands they use. Designers and brands will be thinking more about the imagery they use on their websites, and hire professional photographers to take photos which present them in the way they want to be seen. The truth is, cheesy stock photography will remain with us for some time, but it’s expected to start falling off a bit more quickly in the near future.
4. Illustration
Illustrations can add a great element of fun to a website. They are versatile mediums for creating friendly and playful visuals that are tailored to match the tone of the brand and full of personality. With marketplaces becoming increasingly crowded, it’s something that brands will be striving for more than ever. Once a unique illustration style is established, brands can use it through their entire brand identity, for use in animated visuals, custom iconography, and large header images. If you want to see what kinds of illustrations the world’s best are currently working on and trends unique to illustration, visit Dribbble.com. There, you can discover styles and trends which will surely grow in popularity.
5. Innovative scrolling
Today, scrolling is being used in more creative ways to deliver online content. The old-fashioned notion of using scrolling was to keep the most important content “above the fold”, it’s actually hard to define “the fold” now, because users are viewing the content on different-sized screens. When executed well, scrolling can work great with static content, which can move, animate, or change depending on the user’s input, as well as video content, where large full-screen videos play and pause as users scroll. Scrolling is a mechanic with many applications, but if executed badly, it can be detrimental to usability. We definitely expect it to get better and better, as more web designers experiment and get user feedback.
Animations, beautiful typography, courageous colors, grid, and card UIs, broken and asymmetric layouts – there are countless trends going in web design industry, as well as in any creative industry at all times. It’s hard to pinpoint each one of them, but we believe that these are the core ones that you should be focusing on in the future.