Websites that are even a few years old tend to look completely out of date in today’s ever-changing digital world. Trends in online design evolve as fast as the technology that underpins them, especially with today’s tech-savvy youngsters growing up utterly au fait with the online world. Here is a look at some of the current trends in the digital space.
Scrolling Has Changed Completely
It’s easy to forget how hard it used to be to scroll down a web page, and designers used to try to cram everything into that initial view screen to compensate. Scrollbars were narrow strips at the right hand of the pace that could only be painstakingly navigated with a mouse. Today, however, users tend to engage with content on responsive screens, where they will just use their fingers to tap on to a section of interest or scroll up and down. The result of this is fewer pages requiring click-throughs, and even single continuous pages in some cases. Time is an example of a single web page that offers a continuous scroll.
Users Know What They Are Doing
Today’s generation of savvy internet users automatically and intuitively know how to use the online content that they’ve grown up with. This means that web developers and designers have the opportunity to get rid of obvious calls to action, boxes, badges and click-throughs and can instead focus on creating a minimalist, uncluttered, clean and responsive website with engaging user journeys.
Design Is More Subtle
In early websites, buttons were boxy and prominent, providing obvious click-throughs to users. Today’s websites use ghost buttons, which are typically semi-transparent or entirely transparent but recognisably button-shaped with thin borders and lightweight fonts – typically sans serif choices. Design is increasingly used as a differentiator for the best websites, and professional web designers are key to achieving the right aesthetic. For web design in Somerset, try agencies such as somerset web services.
Speed
Website design over the recent years has responded to faster connections. Large graphics were an issue until desktops sped up. Complex sites were slow to load on early smartphones until 3G came along. Now the advent of 4G offers further opportunities for sites to have rich front-page content and greater interactivity for users without the fear of freezing pages.