From time-to-time, I'm asked what is on the horizon in the world of web design. With that in mind, I give you our design team's collective thoughts on trends for 2011.
1. Mobile sites
Smaller businesses need to keep mobile in mind when designing their main sites while larger businesses with bigger brands can do full-blown custom mobile sites.
2. Fat footers
Fat footers in web design have been trending for a few years now. The reason it is on the list for 2011 is, when we do assessments, 90 percent of the sites we look at don't have them. Site visitors love them. Google loves them.
3. Huge background images
Two variations on this theme: The first is the photographic background. The second approach is using a background that becomes a visually interesting anchor to the overall layout of a page.
4. Fully integrated social media
In the beginning, there were social media icons. Then came the innovative "Social Hub" we came up with a few years ago - along with a few hundred other designers. And then came Meebo, a free third-party tool that adds a social bar at the bottom of your page and enables you to drag and drop selected text and content boxes onto your various social media channels. You can test drive it at AdWeek (try selecting some text and see what happens) and TMZ.com (hover over the video and drag it to see what happens).
5. Less flash usage
Thank you, Steve Jobs. Because of you, we won't be using Flash to do simple slideshows anymore.
6. More rich media advertising
As bandwidth gets more plentiful and computer processors get so fast it doesn't even matter anymore, expect to see more innovative ads on consumer websites that will take over the page and engage you in some sort of diversion. Ads for movies seem to really push the envelope lately.
7. HTML5 / CSS 3
Most of us don't care about these acronyms. We just want cool content delivered to our web browsers and mobile phones. HTML 5 and CSS 3 are going to do just that using new standards that will make creating layouts and embedding video easier than ever before. Safari is the only browser that supports thenew standards, so we may have to wait for other browsers to catch up and, in turn, developers to develop their apps in them.
8. QR codes
QR, in this case stands for Quick Response. These are little bar code-like boxes that enable you to deliver more content to your consumer by giving them the code, which they scan with their mobile phones to access a video, web page or receive a text message with a special offer. Expect to see a lot more of these things.
9. Designing for tablet computers
Buyers like me will get on the bandwagon now that iPad 2 is out. Google and Microsoft will release their versions soon. Designing for tablets is a lot like designing for kiosks: There's no mouse so you have to design for a touch screen, which requires a different set of rules. Buttons need to be bigger with more space between them, for example.
10. Internet Explorer 6 support discontinued
Please don't use Internet Explorer 6. Designing for it is a nightmare of programming exceptions that makes it much more time consuming and expensive to support. There's hope: Microsoft has created a site called IE6 Countdown with the promise that once worldwide usage dips below 1 percent it will stop supporting it, which effectively would kill IE6.
Thanks & Regards,
"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com
http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
1. Mobile sites
Smaller businesses need to keep mobile in mind when designing their main sites while larger businesses with bigger brands can do full-blown custom mobile sites.
2. Fat footers
Fat footers in web design have been trending for a few years now. The reason it is on the list for 2011 is, when we do assessments, 90 percent of the sites we look at don't have them. Site visitors love them. Google loves them.
3. Huge background images
Two variations on this theme: The first is the photographic background. The second approach is using a background that becomes a visually interesting anchor to the overall layout of a page.
4. Fully integrated social media
In the beginning, there were social media icons. Then came the innovative "Social Hub" we came up with a few years ago - along with a few hundred other designers. And then came Meebo, a free third-party tool that adds a social bar at the bottom of your page and enables you to drag and drop selected text and content boxes onto your various social media channels. You can test drive it at AdWeek (try selecting some text and see what happens) and TMZ.com (hover over the video and drag it to see what happens).
5. Less flash usage
Thank you, Steve Jobs. Because of you, we won't be using Flash to do simple slideshows anymore.
6. More rich media advertising
As bandwidth gets more plentiful and computer processors get so fast it doesn't even matter anymore, expect to see more innovative ads on consumer websites that will take over the page and engage you in some sort of diversion. Ads for movies seem to really push the envelope lately.
7. HTML5 / CSS 3
Most of us don't care about these acronyms. We just want cool content delivered to our web browsers and mobile phones. HTML 5 and CSS 3 are going to do just that using new standards that will make creating layouts and embedding video easier than ever before. Safari is the only browser that supports thenew standards, so we may have to wait for other browsers to catch up and, in turn, developers to develop their apps in them.
8. QR codes
QR, in this case stands for Quick Response. These are little bar code-like boxes that enable you to deliver more content to your consumer by giving them the code, which they scan with their mobile phones to access a video, web page or receive a text message with a special offer. Expect to see a lot more of these things.
9. Designing for tablet computers
Buyers like me will get on the bandwagon now that iPad 2 is out. Google and Microsoft will release their versions soon. Designing for tablets is a lot like designing for kiosks: There's no mouse so you have to design for a touch screen, which requires a different set of rules. Buttons need to be bigger with more space between them, for example.
10. Internet Explorer 6 support discontinued
Please don't use Internet Explorer 6. Designing for it is a nightmare of programming exceptions that makes it much more time consuming and expensive to support. There's hope: Microsoft has created a site called IE6 Countdown with the promise that once worldwide usage dips below 1 percent it will stop supporting it, which effectively would kill IE6.
Thanks & Regards,
"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com
http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
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