Top Web Design Trends To Look For In 2015
2015-02-19 05:02:43
It’s the New Year! This means that new website trends are emerging and are becoming more and more popular. Here are some of the tops trends you can expect to see in 2015.
- Scrolling Over Clicking
- Mobile devices are becoming more commonplace for users to visit sites, therefore designers and developers are opting for scrolling versus clicking as a means of displaying content, especially on the homepage. It is more intuitive, easier for users to manage and provides quicker download times. Scrolling will continue to dominate clicking to create a more effective and enjoyable experience for its users.
- Interactive Story Telling
- The content on a website is crucial, but it is using the content to create a story that makes the content valuable. Your brand is made up of several values and concepts; page elements, layout, fonts and colors are all narrative tools that can be used to display the values and concepts live in action. This interaction helps to present the content in a unique and appealing way. When done well, interaction and animation will make your website standout, giving it the “Wow!” factor.
- Large Background Images & Videos
- One of the easiest and simplest ways to make a website stand out, having the content displayed protuberant. When this trend is folded into a larger web design style, it does not feel like a publicity stunt, yet powerful and sophisticated.
- Removing Non-Essential Design Elements
- In favor of simplicity, many designers believe that the website is complete only when all non-essential elements are removed. Through elimination, designers have practically made design decisions around background colours, images, layouts, etc. Designers are opting for a cleaner looking site that stands out among design heavy, image heavy and colour heavy sites.
- Max-Width Centered Layout
- Previously, many websites were utilizing fix-width and centered in the page. Users could tell where the site started, and ended on either side. The new trend is “banding” or width: 100% design element. This means that images and sections are visually stretched the full width of a browsers viewport. This approach provides a strong focus for the site.
- Professional Photography
- Stock images will always have a place in web design, but recently have been taking the backseat to professional photography. Professional photos provide high quality, and enhance the purpose of the site. With professional personalized photos, no one will have these images which allows for a personable effect.
- App-Like Menus
- Responsive web design has been evolving for some time and up until recently more emphasis within the industry has been put on making sites on desktop devices look better than on mobile devices and tablets. With the responsiveness of sites growing, it is becoming more and more desirable to have a site working seamlessly across platforms. Because of this, we are starting to see developers incorporate elements of mobile sites that are working well into desktop sites. For example, more sites are utilizing vertical menus (on the right or left). This technique taken from mobile sites has been carried over.
- Ghost Buttons
- Sites are beginning to hide main menus as soon as visitors are on the site. The main menu only becomes visible once the user is ready, by sliding the mouse across the page and clicking the appropriate icon. This idea was also taken from mobile platforms and carried to desktop devices. Ghost buttons help keep the design of the site clean and functional.
- Large Typography
- Typography was a new trend for 2014, and is expected to continue growing exponentially into 2015. Typography includes large visual statements that will not be missed by users, and enhances the visual hierarchy. It grabs the visitor’s attention immediately to ensure the most important information will not be missed.
- Speed & Performance
- Designers and developers are consistently motivated by the need to make sites load faster and consume less bandwidth. This has made them aware of the weight of sites and how its users interact with them. Therefore network speeds and device types play a vital role (either mobile networks or home ISP’s) in determining file and site sizes. The need for faster loading and flawless performance with no lag will continue to drive the design on new sites.
