11 Ground-Breaking Web Development Trends for 2016
The year 2015 did bring to the fore more in the web development industry than ever before. Almost every web developer now possesses a collection of tools that are indispensable to getting the job done efficiently and successfully. But technology is driving the world of web development at faster pace, so it’s better to keep up than be left in the dust.
But if you’re the one looking for ways to make the development process even more enjoyable, it makes sense to keep abreast with the latest trends. Another thing that you cannot afford to forget is optimization of your web pages on mobiles since almost everyone uses a mobile phone today. Remember, sites that can’t or don’t provide visitors with a pleasant browsing experience fail to survive. So, it makes sense to implement workable techniques and strategies that your website need for the future.
While the trends of the past years seem to have been done to death, it’s time to look at some fresh trends that will take centre stage in the web development market next year! This article will reveal 11 web development frameworks and trends that are set to rock the world in 2016 and help you stay ahead of the curve.
Flat Design Isn’t Going Anywhere!
The trend of websites with flat design has been here for a while and will continue to rule the world even in the year ahead. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it is here to stay and for a really long time. The major reason for web developers to go for a flat design is the simplicity and user-friendliness it lends to your site. In fact, an article published at 1stwebdesigner.com clearly states that 68% of web designers think that flat web design will still be around the next five years from now.
A flat design helps professional web designers concentrate more on the color scheme, content and using white space. You will be amazed to see this trend on some of the world’s most popular websites. Look how Christmas with Joy has mastered the art of flat design by showcasing different versions of popular Christmas characters.
Longer Scrolling Will Rule!
With more and more people depending on mobile for internet related activities, longer scrolling pages is set to becoming increasingly popular with memorable visual designs and graphics. Long scrolling pages give an opportunity to the developers to include sufficient content to entice visitors, on mobile as well as desktop sites. It’s a great way of story-telling and helps make it easy for you to share interesting tales about your product and engage the audience to spend longer time on your site than usual. Sometimes, scrolling becomes so much fun that people forget that they are being targeted as potential buyers. Make sure your story-telling evokes curiosity in people to make them scroll till the bottom of your page.
A perfect example of creating engagement between the user and the content using long scrolling is The Dangers of Fracking site. The page tells the story of a single drop of water going through the fracking process along with snippets of content on each step.
Micro Experiences Are In!
Here, we are talking about creating user experiences that are sweet and simple. By saying shortest experience, we do not mean that people will remain on your site for a very little time. In fact, we advise you to offer easy navigation system, clean and simple appearance with big tab buttons to entice users. For instance, you can just have 4–5 menu bars on your homepage which covers the entire website design. Once a visitor clicks on any single point, several mini apps will appear for providing solutions. It is like an app within an app. The main aim is to let customers accomplish whatever they want to with just a few clicks.
For instance, the site blitzagency.com has included so much content and features together but with only a few menu bars. The site offers an easy to fill contact form to make things easy and convenient for visitors. Take a sneak peek.
Reduction in Page Height
Now, we hope (and not predict) that the trend of more vertical scrolling and less clicking will continue to grow in the coming years. Since scrolling has gained so much importance, thanks to the growing number of smartphone users, short length websites are something that the developers will be eyeing in 2016. Such websites are user friendly and some of them even contains horizontal scrolling function that’s easy to use. There are options that give users an opportunity to arrive to the point from where they require to swipe or scroll. But remember, organization is the key to successful short length websites. A short length website must be laid out in a way that important information pops out. For one, your contact details must not be buried under the fold. For another, the branding elements and logo design must be clearly visible.
Take a glance at a website dreamteam.pl that has short length and very few pages. See how brilliantly this website presents all important information with relatively smaller scale encounters and current front end programming, available with the hover of a mouse click tap.
Focus on Typography
You don’t have to be constrained to the regular Arial and Comic Sans font styles for compatibility now. The web has expanded in terms of typography. So, choose your fonts, font sizes with much care as a customer should feel comfortable while reading your content. Though only a few, better maintained sites have resorted to the font changes, this trend will make its way to almost entire web space in years to come. The font of your text makes a big impact on how people perceive your site. Always remember, first impression is the last impression. Whether you believe it or not, your selection of a font type may attract more customers to your site. You could also include a video at the background to demonstrate the user about your product or service.
Check out the readymag.com‘s site to check how a simple change in fonts can and design can make your site be one step ahead of your competitors. Readymag is an online drag & drop editor which helps creative professionals to easily create microsites, portfolios, presentations, digital magazines and more.
Emphasis on Originality
The current design trend does not give an opportunity to be any different from others. The pattern remains the same with a few changes in the color scheme and images. They all appear the same. This is the biggest problem with mass adoption. It is obvious that markers who started early with such designs must be feeling stale today. Therefore, there is a dire need for originality in your work. Make sure your original website design has everything fresh right from content, design, navigation system to business strategy and patterns. The developer, designer and writer all should be on the same platform while working for creating an original website.
Giving Loading Time a Boost
Nobody has the patience in today’s world to wait for your site to load endlessly, especially on their smartphones. They quickly move on to some other site (of your competitor) if a page takes a little longer than a few seconds to load. So, make sure that you lighten the pages and decrease the time taken to load them. There are several optimizing websites for speed that can help you make your web pages lighter. This point has caught the attention of many developers who have already started utilizing the features of CSS3 instead of heavier JavaScript or Flash options.
Aberdeen Group reveals in a report that a 1-second delay in page load time results in 11% lesser page views, 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and 7% loss in conversions. Clearly, boosting the speed of your website is critical to rank well on Google and boost your bottom-line. So, do well to make little adjustments such as browser caching, scaling the images, compressing them and loading static resources from your website on a CDN in order to speed up your website load time!
Artificial Intelligence will be the Next BIG Thing
Artificial intelligence will have a bigger role in the structuring of websites in 2016. It has sparked a movement in the design world by making the websites more personalized and spontaneous. It is not necessary to have an artificial intelligence system such as Google’s on your site but having intelligent pages or quotes will be a big trend in the year to come. Though examples of this is already present on mobiles apps, emails are not behind in the race. There are times when people get confused if it’s a robot or a human they are interacting with.
For instance, Facebook’s M (messenger) is mind-blowing. It responds quickly to all requests with a combination of artificial intelligence and human touch. The way it responds makes your life easier. I am sure it will become your best friend once you start using it. It does all the day -to-day work for you from suggesting gifts to emailing you movie tickets for a show you had asked for.
Give your site visitors an experience that blows their mind. Having said that, let me ask ‘M’ to plan out something for me after work!
Data-Driven Design Will Be the Hot Ticket
The time of designing websites merely based on images and different color combination is over! In the New Year, we will see more and more marketers using data to improve the design for their websites. And by data, we don’t only statistics or numbers. Such a design is based on data findings of traffic analysis by metrics such as click-through rates, conversions, AB and multivariate testing, rather than the thought process of the designer (not that the thought process of the designer is bad).
While it is easy for the giant companies to access data by testing etc., small companies do not have access to these tools. However, an emerging Apropos will help in filtering down that will make design more data driven.
So, what are you thinking? It’s time you check your click-through rates on all the pages and design your website accordingly.
Blurred Background a New Oprah
Though designers took note of this trend in 2015 as well, not many have used it as yet! Websites with blurred images in the background is set to become a popular website development trend in 2016.
This technique helps in giving prominence to your text and elevate your website’s headers and splash pages. You can create a blur by using Adobe Photoshop or in Site Builder.
Blurred images works as an X factor for your website, when implemented completely. Moreover, this is a great opportunity for you to use your stock images or limited collection of photos. According to search Engine Watch, Facebook found that blurring background helps to speed up page loading time by 30%.
Time to Bin Your Hamburger Menu
It’s time to move on from the Hamburger Menu! Social media giants such as Facebook, YouTube and companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft have also dropped the hamburger menu.
Visible menus have come to out to be much better options for navigation on small mobile screens. If you have too many elements in their menu, you could take the most important ones converted them into a tab bar.
The other elements can be presented on the lower side of the page. It is just prioritizing. You have to take a decision on what you need to have within reach.
Conclusion
There will be dozens of more new trends in the market. Don’t simply follow trends as they’re presently in fashion or will be in fashion in the future. Use the trends that you believe will be good for your users.
We advise you to include these 11 game-changing web development trends in your 2016 marketing strategies as these are the most essential ones. These trends keep coming and going.
Surely, in 2017, we will have a new box of secrets to share with you — but for now keep in mind the above mentioned ones and see how they make you stand out from the rest.
Related articles -
