Is your business website providing the necessary results that you have been looking for?
If you have been thinking of building a new website or revamping your existing one, read on as we take you through some creative and exciting trends in web design technology. Your website makeover will be a success, we promise!
Your website is the cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy. And, as you invest more in it, having a great website goes without saying.
A great website consists of several factors. Some of the most important ones being:
- Consistent design
- User-friendly interface
- Clarity and visibility of information
- Compatible on different browsers
- Adaptability – compatible on PCs, laptops, tablets and smart phones
- Big and clear buttons
- Clear ‘call to action’
If your website falls short in the above areas, it’s time for a makeover. We’ve put together the Top 7 Trends in Website Design that incorporate the above dimensions to uplift your web presence.
1. Simplicity of Design Interaction and Content
Simplicity is in. Do away with complex websites! Building a simple website that is easily accessible and readable is important. Placement of content, user experience, accessibility, usability and visual design would all be covered under this paradigm. The colours, positioning, contrast, size and the design elements would decide on how these areas can be best optimised. And being user-centric in terms of content, identifying and providing what the user wants from the website instead of what you as an organization wants to say are critical.
2. Parallax Web Design
This is one of the breakthrough developments in recent years and we have seen an increase in usage of this design across the internet. This technique integrates a special scrolling technique where the background images on the website moves faster than the images on the foreground. This as a result creates the illusion of 3D within the screen. This technique could be especially useful if your website is visually intensive such as for eCommerce sites.
One of the key benefits of this design is that it encourages users to stay on the page longer increasing the chances of them exploring your products/services. Visit www.beetle.com for a great example of a parallax web design.
3. Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design is a way of developing one set of code to support the display of a website in all display environments regardless of the screen size. It has the ability to be viewed on a desktop in different variations, a tablets vertical and horizontal view and even on a smartphone to provide the user with an optimum visual experience.
Some of the benefits of responsive web design are that different content does not need to be uploaded for the different platforms as it is all consistent throughout while less time and human effort can be spent on designing and managing multiple platforms for your website.
Visit solomoitacademy.com for an experience of responsive web design in your PC, tablet or mobile device.
4. Vertical and Infinite Scrolling
This technique was used on social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter. As the user scrolls down a web site, it seemingly endlessly continues to load content. This improves engagement time where users do not need to find the “next page” button or wait till it loads.
Mashable is one of the best examples on how they have made infinite scrolling to their advantage. With their whole host of article content published thus far, when an article on Mashable is clicked, the page would be loaded with the article on top. The user then can read the entire article by scrolling down. Upon reaching the end of the article, the website acts in a looping affect and the user would find to be at the beginning of the page. This diminishes the use of the “back” button and increases the possibility of reading another article.
5. Multi-device Design
According to designer Laura Kalbag, 2013 will be the year that will see the abandoning of device-specific web designs. The growing number of different devices has brought a new challenge to designers and developers with the need to cater to a more diverse landscape. She also says that web design in the future would be more about system design than static mockups.
Furthermore, consultant and author Eric Meyer states that web design is no more limited to just desktop vs mobile but it also includes TV, couch and so much more.
6. Alternative Navigation
With alternative navigation one does not always experience a website which scrolls up or down. Users are used to instinctively scrolling up and down to search for content. But by incorporating techniques such as parallax and infinite scrolling (as discussed earlier) and by designing and laying out the content in an alternative fashion, a great website experience can be provided. One of the best examples is Jacui Co. website where users can zoom in and out of the page by scrolling and then dragging the page to all directions to navigate. It provides an all new experience to your users.
7. Social Media Integration
Being social is a must in today’s context; therefore, integration of social media is an essential part of your business website. Basically, your social media buttons, which should be big and clearly visible, should direct you to your company’s social media profiles. Another means is that you display your Facebook/Twitter activity feeds at the side of your page. Although these techniques can be seen commonly in websites today, we suggest you to go one step ahead. “Share this” button is a good way to start but some essential features we propose where you can click to tweet or click to pin an image on Pinterest. These would enable sharing to be much easier and specific areas of data can be shared rather than making the user share the entire page.
There you have it. These 7 hottest trends on web design is truly something to look out for and something you definitely consider incorporating to your existing website or use to create a new one. Feel free to shoot out any of your questions or queries about any of the above or even share some insight on the latest web design trends.
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About solomoIT
SolomoIT is a digital marketing agency, based in Sydney, Australia, offering fully integrated social, local and mobile marketing solutions.