Web Designer Tips to Survive 2017
2016 has been a big year for conversational interfaces. In 2017 people will interact with companies, services, and bots through chat, messaging, and other natural language interfaces. As messaging platforms (such as Slack, Facebook Messenger, or WeChat) are overtaking social networks and app downloads, companies are starting to think about ways on how to utilize this change. Therefore the design of conversational user interfaces (for example for websites) will become an increasingly important topic for most web designers in 2017.
Responsive design will continue dominate because it is one of the most effective ways of achieving a good UX. CSS media queries offer websites flexibility and allow them to adjust according to the different devices the site is being accessed on. As website providers we must accept the situation, though, that there’s not a one size fits all situation here. I do believe that offering fewer options, less responsive views, conversions of those websites will go up.
Material design has been developed by Google in recent years and is being steadily rolled out across its applications, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, and YouTube. Material design shows up as a search term since early 2013, however, it only went mainstream in 2015. It is a way of designing to create a hierarchy of meaning and importance on the page, drawing the user’s focus to different areas all the while moving and responding to the user’s actions.
There are a pro’s and con’s to long-scrolling websites. All in all, we do see more and more long-scrolling websites, mainly to the success of seemingly bottomless websites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow users to scroll for hours, constantly seeing new content. As a human race, we’re used to the action now. Many sites are doing away with menus and tabs and instead putting everything on one, long page. The site can be broken up with images, typography, and videos to add some excitement to the experience. Better keep on scrolling.
Typography is getting bigger and bolder. Already 2016 saw an increase in size and ‘out-there’ designs but this trend isn’t stopping any time soon. Brands will be going bigger, more eye-catching, and even full screen. Dynamic colours and textures will be added to interesting and vibrant fonts to create an overall ‘wow’ effect.
It seems typography works well both to for drawing and keeping user’s attention. Large typography can be used effective to break up the grids, especially if the site has a long scrolling page.