Over the past couple of years we have seen a real change in the way we consume the web and digital content. Both web designers and developers have had to keep up with these changes to continue delivering rich and useable interactive experiences. This blog post concentrates on a number of the biggest developments we have seen this year.
Responsive Design
After the past few years we have seen a dramatic increase in mobile browsing. The introduction of lightning fast smartphones and data connections has meant that users are now connected to the web no matter where they are. As such, web designers/developers have had to adopt to this change to ensure the same user experience is served up no what device you are viewing a website on.
This is exactly what Responsive design caters for. By utilising media queries and fluid layouts, responsive websites automatically snap to the width of whatever device you are viewing it on. This means that whether you are viewing a website on a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer, the same user experience is being delivered to you, its just the design has adapted to the device you are viewing it on.
Below are some examples of my favourite responsive sites. View some of these sites and watch what happens when you resize your browser or view the site on your smartphone.
Ableton
Create Digital Media
Happy Cog
Hull Digital Live 2012
Humaan
Mobile First Design
For years it has been normal practice to design websites purely for the purpose of a desktop or laptop screen. Since the introduction of responsive design and mobile websites though, this practice has begun to evolve. A practice we have recently adopted at Indulge, is the mobile first approach. This is where instead of designing for desktop first, you actually begin by designing for a mobile viewport.
Designing for mobile first adheres to the idea of Progressive Enhancement. This is where for the mobile platform you provide the user with minimal screen estate, processing power, third party plugins but still provide them with an amazing user experience which still looks great and functions perfectly. From here, you then proceed forward and design for larger devices such as tablets and then further on, desktops and laptops. As you progress this design process forward the site can then be gradually enhanced and even rethought for larger platforms with less constraints.
The true beauty of mobile first design is that you really get to concentrate on what is the most important part of any user experience, the content. The mobile first process allows you to define right from the start how the user is going to consume your most important content no matter what device they viewing your website on.
Custom Web Fonts
Gone are the days of having to rely on a very limited collection of web safe fonts to use across your website. Although web safe fonts such as Arial, Helvetica and Georgia continue to serve a purpose in web standards, there are now plenty of alternative options available for more advanced and beautiful web typography.
This year we have seen a number of online font services shoot into the mainstream giving web designers/developers an extensive set of font face options when it comes to web typography. These fonts can be used on your website by simply including a couple of lines of code in your document head and then referencing the font in your stylesheet. The great thing about this technique is that it relies mostly on JavaScript, so the end user isn’t required to have the fonts installed on their machine. Such examples of these services are Typekit and Google Fonts, links to which can be seen below.
Typekit
Google Web Fonts
Adobe Edge
Wordpress Themes
Over the past few years, Wordpress has become the web's most popular content management system. Its beautiful user interface, ease of use, extensive plugin library and open source nature has made it the number one cms of choice for web designers and developers all around the world.
The great thing about Wordpress is that you don't have to be a designer or developer to create yourself a website. Thanks to extensive theme stores such as Themeforest, anybody can have an extremely functional and beautiful looking website setup in no time at all. These custom themes can be purchased, installed and moulded to a clients needs very quickly often without evening touching the source code.
Using Wordpress themes is actually a practice we have recently adopted here at Indulge. Clients can often have a pretty tight budget, so instead of starting from scratch we often recommend taking a pre existing theme and working on that. The time in which it takes to setup a high quality website and make it look great by using this process is second to none.
Themeforest
Keeping It Simple
What has become very apparent, particularly since the rise of smartphones and tablets, is there has been a real focus in the design community to keep web design simple. Keeping things simple doesn't mean you cannot have an amazing looking site. In fact it’s completely the opposite. What it ensures is that you can serve up a beautiful website that looks great on any device making it incredibly easy for users to consume content.
Gone are the days of animated cats sat at the top of your screen or complicated interfaces which bamboozle users. Interfaces these days are much simpler and because of this much more intuitive. This simplification of the user interface has made for a much cleaner and snappier user experience making it incredibly easy for users to digest content and find what they need to.
Lets keep things that way!
