Bye-Bye to These 8 Web Design Trends
With 2017 well underway, there are multiple developments regarding web design going around the internet right now. People are less interested in technology and rather opt for stability, ease of access and honesty. The trends are developing with each passing day, and as such, some of them are becoming less and less dominant.
We are here today to take a look at some of the trends that we bid farewell recently or will do so in the near future. Just like any tech development, web design has a lot to show for in for the next chapter of 2017, so let’s take a look at some of the trends that are going away, soon to be replaced with modernly updated contemporaries.
Desktop-first
Seeing as web design started out as a desktop-first business, it’s hard to realize that we are moving away from it. The most dominant trend that will soon fade into oblivion is the development of web-based platforms and sites for the desktop. They will still be in development since everyone is using their computers to access the web at some point during the day.
However, more and more people are moving away from it, opting to use tablets, smartphones, and similar gadgets instead. This means that web development is becoming mobile-centric and focuses more on adaptable design, native to different screen resolutions and sizes of said devices.
Long content
People are losing patience for long-winded content that leads them nowhere and loses their interest halfway through. As such, long content is moving away from the web to be replaced with more user-friendly short and direct content. There is no denying that some topics require longer articles to be explained, but overly convoluted content that spans several pages will take a step back and become obsolete.
There is a psychological component to looking for short and direct content since people’s attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter. They want information, and they want it now, not two minutes later. This is why content is becoming shorter and classic report articles are taking a back seat.
Pop-ups
Nothing matches the frustration we feel when we scroll through a page and see multiple pop-ups offering us everything from email news to shower gel discounts. These pop-ups are becoming a thing of the past because SEO algorithms are becoming smarter and putting these sites on the bottom of the search lists.
Owners of said web sites are fully aware of why they are doing what they are doing – to earn quick cash from ads that impede the users reading process. Pop-ups have obstructed our reading habits online for years and only now are we moving away from them thanks to newly evolved ad strategies that do not feel forced.
Stock photos
While stock photos bring revenue to photographers and photo platforms, they do not sell products as well as people think. Staged photos that look too perfect to be true are moving away from online advertisement and being replaced with content marketing. People want to believe what you are saying to them, but it’s hard when there is a perfectly captured happy family smiling from a photo with a watermark at the bottom next to it.
Content marketing is all about building trust with online users through true testimonials and raw emotions because that is how life really looks like. This is why stock photos are becoming less and less trendy on the internet, soon to be completely replaced with actual site photos.
Flashy design
It is easy to understand why someone would design their website to be as flashy as possible. Using the latest technologies to show your visitors what you can afford and are capable off seems like the right move. However, there are huge problems regarding this way of thinking, mainly with the said technology. Like the research tells us, many companies are moving away from this type of design and shape their content to a more user-friendly type. Taking a look at reviews of companies like best writing advisor will give you an idea of how you can adapt your own online content to this new trend and move away from old trends. These companies will make short work of transforming your content in a professional and trendy way.
More and more users are opting for minimalistic, clean and accessible websites instead of cluttered sites that show off more programming languages than you can count. These websites are not only heavy on your bandwidth load due to many plugins they use, but also lack proper software support in many of today’s devices. That is why websites such as these are becoming less trendy, making way for minimalistic and clean designs that anyone can access.
Banners
Seeing that the advertising market has changed drastically over the past couple of years, we are slowly moving away from the trend of using on-site banners. These huge graphics have often obstructed our vision and took a toll on our bandwidth only to show us an ad that often times does not interest us at all. These banners are moving out of the way now to evolve into something much more user-friendly – native ads.
Just as the name suggests, the native advertisement is here to seamlessly integrate itself into our favorite websites and show us ads that do not bother us as much as banners did. Even better than that, native ads will more often than not target exactly what you are into personally, adapting to your liking along the way. With that being said, it is easy to understand why banners are going away and being replaced.
Side bars
Similar to banners, side bars have plagued our online field of vision for years. These side bars take the form of suggested content that an algorithm thinks you will like. More often than not, you don’t like this content, and it leads to articles that are riddled with problems we have already talked about.
Side bars are being replaced with embedded links to external sources so that you can click on them if you want or skip over them if you do not. Unlike side bars, these embedded links do not slow down your reading or bandwidth, making it more likely you will actually use them. With that said, side bars are slowly becoming a thing of the past and very few people will miss them.
Scrolling
We all know the struggle of scrolling through an article and looking for certain information. Believe it or not, scrolling will become a thing of the past soon, or better said, it will become extremely minimal in design. Scrolling limits your vision to a certain amount of information at a time, leading you to scroll through in order to read the full article or a story you have come for. By combining the disappearance of previous trends we have mentioned, scrolling will truly become a thing of the past. This way, people will receive information quickly, directly and without much hassle.
In conclusion
Some of the trends we have mentioned have already started fading away while others are preparing to do so. It is both pleasant and surprising that such things are happening because we have grown accustomed to such archaic web design trends. As you can see, not all of them are there to necessarily help us but help the owners of said websites. Regardless of that, we are moving away from things that slowed us down in the past and embracing new and exciting web design opportunities in order to build a more user-friendly internet for everyone.
