The year 2012 is upon us and it’s time to look back at what happened in web design and development in 2011 to help us predict what will happen in the upcoming new year. We all know trends come and go and it’s important to be up-to-speed with what’s hot and what’s not. The list below will point out what we expect to become a huge part of the web community.
Fixed Navigation
We’ve seen a lot of this popping up recently in popular sites like Twitter and Facebook. It allows the user to access the navigation throughout their browsing experience without having to scroll back to the top. It’s proven to be a handy tool depending on the design of the site. For example, both Twitter and Facebook have a narrow navigation bar which includes their search bar and logo. If this section of your site is bulky, it may not be a good idea to use a fixed navigation since it will take away precious real estate.
Responsive Design
Towards the last half of this year, the term “responsive design” started to get thrown around in pitches to clients. Why? It’s an important part of the future of web design. Responsive design allows your website to adapt to your visitor’s environment. If they are on a desktop computer, it will show the bigger layout. If they are on a smartphone, a mobile-friendly version will be displayed.
The example below, from London & Partners, shows that even content-rich sites can be responsive. You can see from left-to-right it goes from desktop version, to iPad to smartphone.
Mobile viewing of websites is becoming more and more popular and 2012 will be the year of mobile.
jQuery/CSS3/HTML5 Animations
Apple’s iPhone brought a new and exciting user interface to the web. That neat sliding effect that’s performed when browsing from one page to the next on your smartphone has made it’s way into desktop web designs. These animations are performed using only CSS3 if the browser supports it; and if not, jQuery can help.
Of course, sliding is not the only effect available. Parallax has become popular as well. What this does is give the site a sense of depth, a third dimension. Nike Better World is a fantastic example of great use of parallax scrolling in design.
Custom Fonts
Using custom fonts in design has opened up an almost limitless amount of creativity. A couple years ago, designers were limited to using system-supported fonts like Arial and Verdana. In today’s design, creating a unique experience is even easier.
Font libraries like Google Web Fonts provide hundreds of free, open-source fonts that designers and developers can use in just three simple steps.
2012 will prove to be an interesting year in web design and we look forward to providing these trends to all our clients in order to provide a better, more enjoyable browsing experience.
