2013 Web Trends

Happy New Year and welcome to another year filled with never-ending changes to the web. I put together a list of trends that we will most likely see in 2013.

1. Responsive (multiple fluid grid layouts) or Adaptive (multiple fixed-width layouts) Design
   We briefly talked about this at the jQuery presentation and I foresee this being a popular approach in our future projects. With mobile and tablets becoming increasingly popular, this is a somewhat reliable way of accommodating them.
2. Grid Layouts
   Using grid layouts, especially when building a responsive, adaptive design.
3. User-centric Designs
   Paying closer attention to the user, context and objectives; not just technical or visual aspects.
4. Mobile-first Approach
   Some may disagree, but when building a responsive designs it’s important to know what’s the most important aspects of the site (what’s the excess… imagery and animations).
5. Progressive JPEG
   Using progressive instead of baseline will be the new thing in 2013. Photos are what slows down a site. A baseline jpeg is a full-resolution top-to-bottom scan of the image, and a progressive jpeg is a series of scans of increasing quality. And that’s how they render; baseline jpegs paint top to bottom and progressive jpegs quickly stake out their territory and refine. Read more about this here: http://calendar.perfplanet.com/2012/progressive-jpegs-a-new-best-practice/
6. IE7 Dies
   Of course it depends on the client, but supporting IE7 is not only a waste of time and money but also limits the design. As of November 2012, IE7 was used 1.1%.
7. Google-inspired
   Designs taking on more of subtle gradients and sharp edges. Fewer sites will be inspired by Apple and more by Google.
8. HTML5 & CSS3
   This has been introduced a couple years ago, but I can see CSS3 becoming even more popular in 2013… giving way to the slow death of IE7 and IE8. Depending on the project, usage of more animations and 3d transitions.
9. Retina Displays
   Since Apple has introduced their retina display devices (currently iPhone 4+, iPad 3 and MacBook Pro), there will be a greater means to support these displays.
10. Social Integration
    I don’t see much changing in how we integrate social media into our projects, but if there is a project where users create accounts, sign up forms may become easier by signing in with your Facebook or Twitter account. It’s an almost one-click sign up.
11. Web Fonts
    A greater use of Google Fonts/TypeKit in designs.
12. Parallax & Vertical Scrolling
    These types of sites will become more popular this year. Here’s a cool example (http://johnpolacek.github.com/scrollorama/). I don’t see this type of effect being used much in typical B2C or B2B sites.