And web trends are the first step of these changes: what do the experts tell us is important to know regarding the online world in 2017? Today we leave you five web trends that you cannot ignore, according to Econsultancy experts.
Not too many menu options
You have to be concise, but also clear. What we certainty cannot do is presenting a web menu of only two options the user will not understand. But it is true that too much information also scares the user. Then, ideally, you will need to find the exact number of options for your menu.
For this you have to know very well what your products or services are, how you can group them and how the user will understand you better. In this type of changes, it is highly recommended to test with users who are not used to your product or even your website. Do they understand the steps to follow? Do they finally find what they are looking for? Do they know what you sell?
As we said in other occasions, ideally, users should be able to reach any page of your website in a maximum of three clicks.
A clear example is the change that IKEA has made in its menu. Before they had 10 sections in their menu. After the change, they have reduced it to less than half: 4 main options in the menu and also with a font that is clearer than it was, improving its readability.
Tactile design: material design by Google.
This is one of the big changes we will be see in 2017. Designers will become aware of what is known as material design (from Android, by Google). What is this material design? It has many common features with the famous flat design (a.k.a. minimalist design), but also works with tactile elements and endows great importance to surfaces, depths and well thought out spaces.
This material design is based on objects, on pieces placed in a concrete space that acquire a certain movement. This is the design that we can see on Android phones and is based essentially on the user experience (UX).
Animation and movement (only for the most expert ones)
What do you think your website’s movement is meant for? To catch, obviously, your user’s attention, make him look where we want him to look at. And, consequently, increase the navigation time of this visitor in your site.
It’s possible to say that movement is one of the most important characteristics of the material design, and many applications have already been incorporating it. Nevertheless, we still don’t see this motion design in enough websites.
The most important thing when using web animation is that the movements and transitions are efficient and, above all, coherent. They should serve to guide the user during his navigation. Again, we must focus on the user experience.
On the Android website we can see clear examples of movement on website. And obviously Google has been the promoter of this trend.
More real photos and own graphics. Run away from the image banks.
This 2017 we should be focus on stop going to image banks in order to get pictures fro your website. Own images and homemade graphics and infographics will become increasingly important.
And this trend will be more important when talking about the hotel sector. What are your potential guests looking for? They would like to see how it is the room in which they will rest, the swimming pool in which they will take a dip and the restaurant in which they will breakfast like kings.
Therefore, every hotelier should pay special attention to this trend and highlights this 2017 with own images and high quality.
PWAs stands for progressive web apps.
These are mobile websites that have adopted an app design without being one. This 2017, thanks to the HTML5 language, among other technological advances, PWAs will be more accessible, more attractive and more demanded.
It’s about taking a step further in responsive design. Yes, our website adapts to mobile devices but, in addition, it should be displayed with a design that your user already know, with which hi works daily with his smartphone.
An example of a progressive web application would be the Washington Post’s PWA. In this article they present their new mobile web and here we leave you an image of it.
