Just as new car manufacturers roll out improved models and features every year, so does the website industry. Today, we can see an obvious push towards website functionality for mobile devices, as well as a general shift in content philosophy. As 2015 rapidly approaches, you will surely notice a variety of new trends implemented across the web. Alternatively, if you are thinking of building a website, or making changes to your existing site, here are some things to consider:
Responsive And Mobile Friendly:
It may be obvious, but it is more important than ever to ensure that your website is built with responsive design. Responsive design allows the site’s structure to be reformatted to fit the screen of whatever device the user is viewing from (PC, tablet, smartphone). This is especially crucial when you consider the fact that Americans now use smartphones and tablets to access the internet more than PCs – 55% vs. 45%, respectively, as of data reported in February of this year.
Infinite Scrolling:
This piggy-backs the responsive design trend. It helps solve the problem of where to go when a user has reached the end of an article, and has already proved an effective technique with mobile devices. The idea is that a new article or story is presented when the user finishes analyzing the original piece, increasing the likelihood that they continue to read additional articles and, ultimately, spend more time on your site. For websites with a lot of content, such as social media platforms, this will be a trend that will likely be adapted across the board.
Sliders Out – Heroes In:
Large hero areas are now beginning to ‘take-over’ homepage themes, replacing many existing image sliders. Hero areas are better described as images that occupy most of the page and/or introduce a topic or theme with little or no text. They are slowly being adapted as attention grabbers, and are pushing website themes toward a more simple and straightforward philosophy.
Simplified Website Themes:
Historically, content used to be king when it came to websites. Next came the age of extravagant visuals, colors, and fonts. In 2015, expect to see a shift backwards – to a simple, more tiled layout of websites. Copy is being reduced and replaced with striking visuals and videos, such as the large hero areas mentioned above. These new trends for 2015 seem to be more functional versus flashy. Users are are simply finding it easier to work with simplified content structures, and developers are responding to the that preference.
Contact iPoint if you are interested in keeping your website up-to-date, competitive and visually appealing.