New Year, New Approaches to Web Design
Three weeks into January and we’ve all forgotten our New Year’s resolutions, but changes in the way web design happens are approaching. This piece summarises the key points you may see this year.
Mark Lusted of Dock9 has written a forecast of the changes we can expect this year.
Less Stock, More Original Imagery
The trend for using fewer stock images and instead sourcing of original custom images will continue, as web designers make their productions more distinctive. With the increased availability of template sets and the associated risk of sameness, the temptation is to use your own images.
Talk to Me
Chatbots, which allow the user to have a simulated conversation with a site, are growing in popularity, and these require very particular skills which were previously not part of the web designer’s toolkit. The ability to create micro language units that can be assembled into a conversation may be quite a challenge for somebody whose core skills are visual.
Animate the Dull Bits
Animation will appear more often in sites, with the availability of Google Material Design. These may not be complex Flash animations, but small subtle movements to help the mundane functions such as loading or 404 responses, to help the viewer feel more connected to the site experience.
Those Little Touches
What are called micro interactions such as button pressing and clicking will increase in importance. The skill is to get the balance and number of them right. Too much and the viewer feels irritated or annoyed and may shut the site. Just enough and they will feel involved and have a sense of ownership of the site’s processes.
Way Down There
Long scrolling devices will become more popular, simplifying and enlivening the process of going up or down long pages. Touch sensitive screens make this trend even easier to follow.
Less is More
The move towards minimalism in design will continue.
More is More
Virtual Reality techniques will grow slowly, but this whole realm of additional processes may not appear in strength until the future.
If you are worried, check out the help of a skilled practitioner like Cardiff web designer http://www.netcentrics.co.uk/.
The Future is Here
Well, some of it anyway. 2017 is underway – get with it!