Every web designer, design agency or somebody who works with websites must keep themselves up to date with the latest goings on in the world of web design, because the web is a unique environment which is constantly changing and evolving. Every year some new trends are born, some fade and some just continue to prosper.
We’re in a golden era of tools for designers with new products coming out every month. Innovative tools are popping up in every part of the workflow. From brand/asset management (Lingo and Bynder), to prototyping and collaboration (Marvel, Zeplin, InVision, Flinto, Justinmind), to website creation (Webydo, Blocs, Webflow), to tools for the amateur or marketer (Canva, Stencil, PicMonkey), and of course, to professional creation tools (Sketch, Affinity). And those are just the larger, more successful ones.
In this article we will take a look at new web design predictions for 2017, which hopefully will help you design better websites.
Let’s start!
There is no doubt that 2017 is definitely the year for super-rich gradient colors. Gradients and bright colors are already being implemented much more than in the past. We will also see many companies rebranded their own brand with bright bold colors. Instagram, Stripe and Asana are some good examples that already started.
We can all notice that today every young adult is an expert web user. And even the amateurs are acting like pros: using multiple tabs, and swiping to go back a page.
The result is that everything is faster. And we’ve all learned to become impatient. If you want to make a mild mannered person explode with annoyance, just make their Internet really slow for a minute.
Now websites are forced not just to become faster, but to become faster to understand. Designs which slow the user down have the same impact on their audience as these websites which don’t load at all.
Simpler designs are easier to scan, which means they’re faster to appreciate.
This is the biggest reason for the death of skeuomorphic design: users are more perceptive, less patient, and clutter only slows them down.
Apps put most websites to shame with super-minimal, beautiful interfaces. And they’re doing this because minimal interfaces perform better.
What about animation?
If you want to make a website look dated, cover it with animated “Under Construction” GIFs and Flash animation. But several things are coming together to make animation a rising star in modern web design.
Flat design can end up looking too consistent, boring even. Animation helps a website to stand out and to pack more information into less space.
Mobile apps have redefined what a user expects. Mobile apps use motion to convey meaning, and websites are just starting to do the same.
Typography trends emerge every year. Everyone is aware of the importance of typography in UX design. Much more than just arranging pretty fonts on a nice background, typography is an essential part of every design, it can make or break a whole project. It enhances your story, emotions you want to drive. It helps you to communicate the message to your users. This year we will see an increase in bold fonts.
If you haven’t dived into flexbox yet, you’re in for a treat. This relatively “new” CSS layout module offers both incredible responsive-friendliness in its functionality, but also makes a lot of sense to visual designers used to manipulating objects on the canvas with the align and distribute tools offered in the likes of Sketch and Illustrator.
Coming up hot on the heels of flexbox in the race for newer, better layout modules is CSS grid. While flexbox helps us solve some seriously aggravating and long-standing web design problems like vertical centering, it really wasn’t intended for use in full-page layouts. Grid, on the other hand, was built for full-page layouts. And like flexbox, it allows you to easily rearrange content order for different media queries.
There will be more focus on conversation. You might call 2016 the year of the bot. 2017’s going to see a lot more bots popping up across your life.
What this might mean, exactly, we’ll have to wait and see. But possible impacts include:
- An even greater interest in “human” language (more good news for content strategists!)
- Increased capacities for writers and content strategists to act as UX designers and bot developers
- More conversational/natural-language forms
- Attempts to transform the comment section from the internet’s sewer into fonts of “engagement” and new content — an effort already kicked off by the Coral Project
These are the main trends we believe will be trending for web design in 2017, but we want to hear from all of you! What are your predictions? Waiting for your comments.
Kate Kviatkovskaya
Business Development Manager
