Separating the Noise from the Substance: These 3 Web Design Trends Are Worth Their Weight in Gold

by Josette Millar

Website design is by its very nature susceptible to trends, and using outdated trends can lead to websites that appear dated and can lead to reduced view time. Blindly following web design trends is also a road to failure, as many websites embrace trends that are not user friendly or even usable. Finding the middle road by keeping up to date and knowing which web design trends are useful can be difficult, but is essential to having great website design that is memorable and easy to navigate.

Web Design Trends to Look Out For

As website design starts to move towards a more visual-based approach, a number of design trends are emerging that can help your website make a strong impact on your users:

• Flat design elements look much cleaner and allow for a much starker contrast, which gives you the freedom to highlight important elements of your website easily. The flat user interface has even made its way into navigation menus and form inputs and is definitely one of the hottest web design trends at the moment.
• Scrolling over clicking. As mobile design takes more of a forefront, scrolling is rapidly taking the place of clicking in website navigation. Not only does it make the website easier to navigate, it cuts down on load times and allows for a much more dynamic interaction between the user and the website.
• Personalized surfing is on the rise. The use of cookies to display more relevant content is nothing new, but instead of having spammy pop-ups and shameless upselling, many websites are turning to more tasteful uses that enhance the user experience. Good examples of this technique done right is how YouTube remembers what you recently watched and offers suggestions of similar content.

Web Design Trends on Their Way Out

There are plenty of design trends that are slowly becoming obsolete, and knowing what they are can help you avoid some common design pitfalls. Some of those that are on their way out include:

• Mobile versions of websites are on the decline, with designers choosing to focus instead on having responsive design. The line between desktop and mobile is rapidly blurring, with mobile devices becoming larger and having a much larger market share than they used to. This is leading to developers doing mobile-first design that allows the layout to be adjusted based on the contextual experience of the user.
• Text heavy sites with lots of headings and subheadings are a thing of the past. Instead of using text to provide information, visuals are taking over as the medium of choice. Even when sites are heavily text-based by nature, these are now interspersed with pictures, video and interactive functionality, allowing for a more immersive experience for the user. Combining content with strong visuals is a good way of ensuring that even the most attention-lacking user will be able to get the information they need from your website.
• SEO copywriting leads to dead, soulless content that is stuffed with meaningless keywords. Due to Google’s rapidly changing search algorithms, the era of SEO copywriting is coming to an end. Instead, focus on generating copy that is interesting and applicable to the readers of your website, and use copywriting as an accessory, not the main tool to generate page views.

Conclusion

Keeping your website up-to-date is essential for staying competitive, but blindly following trends can lead to websites that are a nightmare to use. Make sure that every element in your website design has a purpose and adds to the user experience, and make use of personalized content while designing your site with the user in mind at all times.