10 Web Design Trends for 2017
By Thomas Peham
Source: UserSnap
With a new year just around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the future direction of web design.
As technology advances and becomes more ingrained into every facet of our daily lives, users are demanding more and more from their online user experiences (UX).
Personal, interactive, and relevant are three keywords which users want from their UX. Which basically means web designers now face the challenge of developing a website which understands and responds to its users throughout the process.
What’s new in 2017?
Last year, I wrote about the best 7 web design trends for 2016. My article received a lot of attention, comments, and questions. So we decided to not only update our last year’s article but provide you with a new one, packed with insights on the latest web design trends for 2017.
Let’s get started.
1. The end of traditional web design
The concept of web design in the traditional sense is fading away. Or as Eric Meyer stated in a recent Offscreen magazine he stopped calling himself a web designer but rather calls himself an “experience designer”.
In traditional web design, the role of design was more to make the tech look good to its audience.
Web design is more than that. It has morphed into something bigger.
Web designers (or experience designers) no longer just make websites “look beautiful”. Rather they need to look into the experience of users and their stories.
2. Conversational UI
2016 has been a big year for conversational interfaces. Or as Chris Messina, the founder of the hashtag and former Googler stated:
“2016 will be the year of conversation commerce.”
Chris mentioned in this article that people will interact with companies, services, and bots through chat, messaging, and other natural language interfaces.
As messaging platforms (such as Slack, Facebook Messenger, or WeChat) are overtaking social networks and app downloads, companies are starting to think about ways on how to utilize this change.
Therefore the design of conversational user interfaces (for example for websites) will become an increasingly important topic for most web designers in 2017.
There are still a lot of questions unsolved, but rest assured: conversational interfaces and the experiences of those are becoming a big topic in 2017.
3. GIFs & other animations
A lot of websites and apps use animations for a while. What’s new is that GIFs are going mainstream.
As Ash from Buffer states:
“GIFs are great. And they’re everywhere.”
Now built into Facebook and Twitter, GIFs can also be used for your web design.
But don’t overuse them – they work well to draw a user’s attention. GIFs enable you to provide a richer product experience, explain a workflow, or simply provide a how to guide for your users.
And with several GIF creation tools (such as Photoshop, Giphy, or record.it) web designers are not limited in their design process.
To put it simply. We at Usersnap love GIFs.
4. Next generation of responsive design
Responsive design will continue dominate because it is one of the most effective ways of achieving a good UX.
CSS media queries offer websites flexibility and allow them to adjust according to the different devices the site is being accessed on.
In April 2016, Google changed its ranking algorithm to prioritize websites which have optimized content and throughout the next year we’ll see companies hurrying to re-boost their Google ranks.
As website providers we must accept the situation, though, that there’s not a one size fits all situation here. I do believe that offering fewer options, less responsive views, conversions of those websites will go up.