In Scott’s article “Rethinking Web Design,” he talks about some recent shifts in the world of website design. The latest trends are somewhat oxymoronic in nature. Large visuals and edge-to-edge imagery is incredibly popular at the moment despite the fact that most visitors are viewing sites mobily on a small screen. Designers need to rethink the way they approach site design by keeping these opposing trends in mind. Here are five tips that will help you stay on top of constantly changing website trends:
- The Mobile Overtake – As Scott mentioned in his article, it’s 2016 and 65% of all digital time is spent on a mobile device. Visitors that are viewing your site on a desktop computer are now in the minority. Simply put, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, that needs to change yesterday.
- Larger, Yet More Concise – To continue the theme of opposite trends, graphics and content are moving in completely different directions. With all things visual, bigger is better. Website visuals need to be larger than ever before. Conversely, people’s attention spans for reading text are shorter than ever. Written content for sites needs to be more concise than ever before. Visitors would rather watch a video or look at an infographic than read paragraphs.
- Dealing with Regression – In Scott’s article he talks about the challenges and frustrations these opposing trends are causing for designers. The need to design sites with more pixels and larger visuals causes regression and headaches when trying to make them work on a 3” x 5” mobile device. Because of this, designers are changing their approach.
- Mobile as a Main Priority – The best way to deal with the issue of regression is to make mobile design a main priority rather than an afterthought. This makes complete sense considering most traffic is now mobile as mentioned above. Designing a site to be mobile-friendly needs to be considered up front in the planning process before any actual design takes place.
- Start with the Hardest Part – Scott’s advice to other designers is to start with the hardest aspect of design first. Designing for a 3” x 5” screen is astronomically more difficult than designing for a large desktop screen, so get it out of the way first. It is much easier to add extravagance to a small, simple mobile design and repurpose it for a large desktop than it is to scale down a desktop design and make it look decent on a mobile device.
If you need help designing a quality site and staying on top of the evolving trends of web design, give us a call at 701-478-1111 and ask to speak with a marketing advisor or visit absolutemg.com/contact.