Where Web Design Trends Have Been

Web design for 2015 saw a lot of refinements of trends from 2014. Recent years saw trends such as:

• Minimal
• Flat
• Video sliders
• Long scroll
• Hero images
• Hamburger menus
• Responsive
• Mobile first
• Newsletter popups
• Frontend frameworks
• Background video
• CSS animation

Many of these trends will continue to be refined. Some will be replaced with better alternatives. Others, such as background video, will be used with moderation.

2016 web design trends could probably be summed up in two letters: U and X. Okay, and maybe one more word, too: mobile. Trends will follow best practices for both UX and mobile platforms. UX and mobile have been in view over the past few years, but now they’re front and center and the main driving focus of website design with an uncluttered UI.

This year will see even more refinement and standardization of current trends. We’ll see concepts go from just an ideal to the standard. From new to the norm.

Material Design

Material Design is an alternative to flat design that brings back some nice graphical elements. It’s a set of Google design standards that separates elements using the layers concept found in image editing software. It can stack and remove elements as needed. It even has built-in animations that would normally need to be created manually. It’s a design language with a specific set of guidelines which takes out the guesswork. The results look the same from one platform to another. Since these standards are established by Google they’re sure to have widespread support. It is possible, however, that adhering to strict guidelines will hamper creativity. I see this as a challenge to improve creativity within the guidelines.

Compared to Flat Design

Material design is different from flat design. Flat design a design basis for presenting UI and graphical elements. It simply strips the visuals down to the basics and does away with visuals that try to mimic the real world with designs such as rounded corners, textures, shadows, etc. It minimizes all of the showy stuff that distracts from the story and reduces the amount of information that readers have to deal with. It has solid colors, sharp edges, and thin lines. Flat design scales well and is easy to read on mobile devices. It’s practical and works well. It loads fast. The problem is appearance is secondary. It limits the amount of colors you can use and can sometimes look generic. Flat design won’t be going away. It’s actually compatible with Material Design as well as being responsive and minimal. There will be a focus on turning off what’s not needed so they can focus on what is. The trend will be finding that perfect balance between the two. Flat doesn’t have to mean boring. Many companies are opting to utilize responsive web design and development for two big reasons:

• Mobile sites usually require you to populate the same information twice for both the mobile and the desktop versions. This leads to extra work on the part of the administrator.
• Search engines such as Google prefer a responsive design which in turn improves your ranking since your website traffic reporting is more reliable.