Change is the only matter which does not change, since change is essential and unavoidable in any field especially in web oriented tasks. Website designing is constant in being dynamic. With the number of new innovations with technical advancement, many latest web design trends have been introduced in 2013, which leads to increase in number of viewers and spectators for that particular website. The website designed for any business should be capable of transforming viewers into customers.
Here are the latest web design trends, as reported by Inspired Mag.
Responsive Design
Responsive sites are vital for companies looking to grab their audiences, especially the younger audiences who browse the web on anything imaginable. Creating a usable website that is the same on both desktop and mobile devices can be a challenge, but will really payoff in the end.
Keeping it Simple
Complex websites used to be what we’d see cluttering the Web, but not anymore. No more will we see Flash and collage-focused headers that are followed up by more slightly related pictures with little content and navigation layouts. We’ve moved to a more simplistic, minimalistic approach.
Speaking of UX
The tough yet simple part of UX design is learning how to web design for an audience’s experience when they haven’t even visited your website yet. Many websites use simple graphics and to-the-point content coupled with easy navigation to guide their users through the website.
Make it Faster
We want faster websites because the rest of the Internet is growing in speed and it will seem out-of-place if we don’t keep up. We are in a society where we grow impatient quickly and just want what we came for within seconds. Don’t get left behind: upgrade your speeds!
Social Media
Businesses have realized that to do business in this world, it’s almost required to have a Facebook and Twitter account. More than 50% of businesses now use some form of social media. If you’re using WordPress, it’s time to grab the social media plug-in that best suits your website.
New Tools for Web Design
Below are a few new web apps, app creators, coding resources, productivity tools, testing tools, and some really great new fonts from Web Designer Depot. Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a lot of designers and developers out there.
- Appmaker, from Mozilla, is a drag-and-drop mobile app creator that works right in your browser. It’s in pre-alpha release, so expect some bugs, but it looks promising.
- InstallRails is a step-by-step guide for installing Ruby on Rails. It uses standard tools, but explains them in a way that makes them easy to understand.
- BitBalloon is a static hosting service that’s perfect for simple sites like landing pages, surveys, and the like. Just zip your website files (or use one of their templates), drag and drop the zip file onto their website, and they’ll optimize and deploy it, complete with functioning HTML forms.
- Hiro is an online notepad where you can safely store your ideas and notes throughout the day. It always opens where you left off, securely syncs across your devices, and it’s free.
- Sagan Ipsum is a lorem ipsum generator that gives you Carl Sagan quotes about the universe.
- WP Test is a set of data for testing the integrity of your WordPress plugins and themes. It’s based on the WordPress Theme Unit Test Codex data, to give you a mix of quirky, simulated user content.
- Business Card Maker is a web app for quickly creating simple business cards that you can then download to print.
- Mobile Web Best Practices will help you ask the right questions and solve problems you may encounter when designing for the mobile web. It’s broken down to cover strategy, user experience, visual design, and development, and has additional resources and a FAQ section.
- UICloud is a huge database of user interface elements. You can search through over 38,000 elements, and over 1200 UI sets.
- DiagnostiCSS makes it simple to visually detect inaccessible or invalid HTML markup, highlighting inline styles and event attributes, invalid links, empty and deprecated elements, and more.
Google Launches Web Design Program
As reported by Tech Crunch, Google recently announced the launch of Web Designer, a new tool for building interactive HTML5 sites and ads. Web Designer, which Google calls a “professional-quality design tool,” is now officially in public beta and available for download for Mac and Windows.
Web Designer was developed to allow advertisers to easily create HTML5 ads for mobile and desktop. Until recently, Google argues, advertisers “didn’t have the tools they needed to easily develop content fit for today’s cross-screen experiences” and Web Designer aims to be the tool to create these experiences.
At its core, Web Designer is a visual tool, but you can also delve right into the JavaScript and CSS to fine-tune different aspect of your site. Indeed, Web Designer allows you to manipulate all of your code directly in a built-in editor and lets you quickly preview your creations in every browser you have installed on your machine.
The tools come with all the usual visual design tools you’re probably familiar with. Some of the more interesting ones Google has developed for Web Designer include a pen tool for free drawing, as well as a timeline for managing your animations. Web Designer also features the ability to create 3D content using the power of CSS3, as well as a set of pre-built components for galleries, maps and embedded YouTube videos.
For animations, one of the core features of the application, Web Developer features a Quick mode for building animations scene by scene and an advanced mode that gives designers more control over each of the elements on the page.