A quick flashback to January 1996, when there were just 100,000 websites on the internet blipping away on dial-up connections and radiating CRT monitors. By September 2014 the number of websites had grown to 1 Billion and rising rapidly.
It’s little wonder then that over the last 20 years website design layouts, colour schemes, user experience and media formats have all evolved to make the internet faster, smarter and even easier to use.
Jumping forward to today, what trends are emerging that make the internet even more enjoyable for people of all ages and demographics? We uncover the top 5 KMO website design trends for 2017.
1. Mobile first design takes over
Statistics have forecasted the number of mobile phone users worldwide is to reach 4.77 Billion by the end of this year, with the majority of phones now being connected 24/7 to the web. No matter what industry you’re in, it’s vital to appreciate the importance of a mobile first website design.
Mobile-first design is important because phones have limited screen real-estate and this forces web design to be lean without sacrificing usability and content. Mobile first design helps to maximise retention on smaller screens and progressively scale up with richer content, such as video for larger mobile phone screens, tablets and desktops.
This is in stark contrast to the older approach where the mobile versions of websites were created as less than stellar add-ons to the desktop formats.
2. Bigger and better website typography
Steve Jobs re-introduced the world to typography in 1984 with the Macintosh, the world’s first computer that came with beautiful typography. Typography is more than just an art; it has created entire brands.
The trend today is to use larger fonts and less text, in essence filling the same amount of real-estate on a website page but providing a much easier message to read, digest and remember.
When we talk about your project, we’ll chat about what fonts and typography will help you best present your brand and help your users remember your message.
3. Authentic photography at all times
The most powerful messages that the world has ever seen came in the form of photographs. However, with the widespread availability and cheapness of stock photography, many websites over the last ten years ended up looking very much the same, and these website are nowadays perceived as suspicious and unauthentic.
While stock photography can still play its part in the background, you will need to avoid common stock photo’s at all costs. It’s worth pointing out here that real, authentic photography is now used across all of the world’s most successful websites.
4. Bolder website colours
The average human being is capable of perceiving a million colours. Nothing excites us more than seeing a vibrant and brilliant palette of colours used to evoke emotions and trigger feelings.
Memories are often made of colour too, think of red and yellow and McDonald’s comes to mind. Through clever use of contrasting and complementary hues and tones, a website promises excitement and freshness, an attractive quality to users of all ages.
2017 website design trends summary
While many new trends come and go such as parallax website design, some of the trends highlighted in this article include the patterns that have been emerging over the last 10 years and will most likely continue to evolve.
Note that we have purposely left out any user experience (UX) trends this year because for the team at KMO, a remarkable user experience is a given!
With the exponential rate of content on the internet and thousands of new websites competing for the attention of web users every day, it is essential for website owners and designers to continue to keep themselves up-to-date and pushing website design trends.
If you would like to discuss your ideas for your next project, please just get in touch with the friendly team at KMO today.
