When it comes to trends witnessed across the wonderful world of web design, there have been many hits and misses over the years;
Whilst we have moved on from the days of animated-GIF-laden websites, text embedded in images, cheesy MIDI loops, sparkly cursor effects and pointless animated splash screens, this evolution didn’t happen overnight: the web is in a constant state of flux, with millions of people across the globe contributing to the 30 trillion (and counting) unique URLs out there.
In such an environment, with so many variables, luckily, natural selection (in most cases) ensures that certain trends become more popular than others: with this in mind, let’s take a look at three emerging trends which look set to stick around for quite some time and change the web for the better…
Responsive web design
In a world where we can access online content from a bewildering array of devices, it becomes ever more important to produce websites which look and perform beautifully, no matter how a user accesses them.
With tablets, smart phones, games consoles, smart TVs, smart watches and other new kinds of web-enabled devices out there, not to mention the range of operating systems, browsers and custom software used on each of them, it might not be possible to please every user, but, by adopting a responsive approach to web technology and ensuring that best practice is followed in terms of usability, designers can achieve positive, effective results across a wide range of platforms.
This way of thinking is becoming increasingly commonplace, especially as far as prominent, big-name websites are concerned: and we all know that, when big names adopt certain practices, smaller names tend to follow suit.
Custom fonts
In the past, web-designers tended to stick to a series of limited fonts, to ensure legibility, avoid copyright infringement and guarantee compatibility across a range of systems: whilst there is nothing wrong with this approach (if anything, using pre-installed fonts will result in rapid load times, as fonts won’t have to be retrieved from an online location), it has stifled creativity on the web somewhat, as well as encouraging poor practices like using images with embedded text;
Thanks to technologies like Google’s Web Fonts, web designers now have much more freedom when it comes to the typographical choices available to them.
Once users and webmasters alike see the benefits of this degree of flexibility, this trend is likely to become increasingly popular.
A more social web
The next time you have to share a wait at a train platform, doctor’s waiting room, bus queue or other public place with others, stop for a moment to count just how many people are fixated upon an electronic device of some sort at any one time;
Chances are, if they are not catching up with the latest news, reading an e-book, playing a game or admiring their own reflection, there is a good chance that they are sharing a link, sending a message, uploading a picture, linking a video, ‘tweeting’, ‘liking’, ‘poking’, or any number of activities across a social networking platform.
Today’s breed of user expects to be able to easily share their web content with others and as a result, developers have come up with a huge variety of clever, seamless methods of integrating social media interaction within the websites which they design;
As social media becomes a bigger part of peoples’ lives, it is only natural to speculate that it will start to filter its way into more and more websites in coming years.
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