The web has always enjoyed a rapid and exciting pace of innovation. Web design is constantly changing too – it’s easy to see this in any digital agency here in Bristol. In this article I’m going to take a look at some of the current web design trends for business.
1. Mobile Web
As sales of smartphones and tablet devices accelerates and overtakes the humble desktop computer, it’s going to become more and more important for companies to have websites that are optimised for mobile. Frameworks such as jQuery mobile will help give an app-like experience to mobile websites.
2. HTML5 + CSS3
The latest and greatest versions of HTML and CSS are going to make it that bit easier for designers to include such niceties as rounded corners, drop shadows and smooth gradients, while increasing the speed of websites. The latest browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will help these technologies to spread faster.
3. Mobile E-Commerce
The ubiquity of internet-enabled mobile devices will see more and more transactions taking place away from the desktop. This will enable more service businesses to take advantage of e-commerce at the point of sale.
4. Animation without Flash
Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices have been hugely successful – but they don’t support Flash. Designers, always keen to create exciting and interactive digital experiences, have come up with some crafty ways of including animation without needing Flash, such as the jQuery Spritely plugin.
5. Social E-Commerce
Digital music service Spotify has already integrated social networking into their music player, with the ability to share and recommend tracks amongst friends. Soon this type of functionality is inevitably going to make it to e-commerce stores – with the ability to share your favourite products amongst friends.
6. Typography
Website design used to confined with a very limited choice of fonts. Thankfully this has now been rectified with more exciting fonts thanks to Cufon and sIFR implementations, although these still cause some accessibility, usability and potentially legal concerns. Look out for Google Web Fonts which avoid these concerns – expect to see them just about everywhere in the near future.
7. Simple Yet Bold Design
The trend for panoramic, hi-resolution photographic backgrounds, simple colour schemes, and large bold logos and typography seem set to continue for the foreseeable future.
8. Data-Driven Personalisation
The recent launch in the UK of the police.uk website caused a media frenzy – not least because the volume of traffic overloaded the servers. All sorts of public data and statistics are available through this and other sites such as data.gov.uk, and this should enable greater personalisation of web content across all sorts of areas such as public services, health, transport and more.
9. The Death of the Mouse
A side-effect of the increase in mobile devices is that the mouse is finally going to lose its position as the most popular input device. Rollovers and dropdowns will decrease in popularity, or at least will have to become a non-essential ingredient in the user interface for visitors browsing on touch-based devices.
10. Fluid Layouts
Fluid layouts that adapt to the screen have fallen out of favour over recent years, but with smartphones and tablets, designers now have to cater to a plethora of different screen sizes and proportions. One solution to this is a fluid layout that can seemlessly adapt to any screen. This can be difficult to execute – but expect creative designers to rise to the challenge!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my thoughts on current trends in business web design.