Top 2017 Web Design Trends

Web design is a dynamic industry that involves constant evolution of popular website interfaces. It is an industry born from creativity and innovation. This is why each year is always different than the last.

With new trends and technological advances always emerging, online interactions need to adhere to what’s current. In order to help you with that, we’ve put together this list of the biggest web design trends to look out for in 2017.

Card-Based Web Design

If you’ve ever visited Pinterest, you know what a card-based web design looks like. They have utilized this design for years and has managed to inspire simplicity across the Internet.

If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, card-based web design is a design that utilizes ‘cards’ in order to display information fast and efficiently.

It is a responsive design that works well across multiple devices and allows users to preview more than one source of information at once. They are essentially miniature websites dispersed across one platform¹.

This design is on the rise now more than ever. You will begin to see card-based web design utilized on many popular sites in 2017.

Microinteractions

Microinteractions are often not consciously thought of by users. They are interactions that involve one small task. Every time you set your alarm clock on your phone, choose a password, post a new status, sync data or even like a friend’s post, you are performing a microinteraction² .

They are a way for people to interact on the Internet through websites or apps. Web design is beginning to focus more on these interactions in order to produce more vibrant, receptive components. According to Forbes, microinteractions can even create new habit loops that allow designers to create more intuitive experiences and interactions for the user³.

Think about how much of an influence Tinder has had on the virtual dating experience (yep, that’s a microinteraction!).

GIFS

When texting was introduced, people started to slowly make fewer and fewer phone calls. When emojis were released, words were replaced. GIFs are now making leeway as the next big communicative platform.

These are basically still pictures that involve small moving parts replayed over, and over, again.

GIFs have a significant impact on users across various platforms and tend to capture attention much faster than a paragraph would. Even operating devices across cell phones and apps have begun to add a “GIF keyboard” so users can now converse with these short cinemagraphs.

The use of GIFs across websites has the ability to entrance visitors without slowing down a website’s loading speed. It’s a trend that web designers are starting to incorporate more frequently and it doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon.

Minimalism

Minimalistic websites have been around since day 1, but 2017 is the beginning of a shift toward the extreme. Even Netflix has downsized their logo to be more minimalistic. Minimalism allows increased efficiency and consistency for web design across multiple devices. With a growing focus on open composition and grid-based CSS styling, minimalism promotes a clean, assessable website for users to interact on.

Animation

Today, everybody is in a hurry. No body has time, or the desire, to sit down and read paragraph after paragraph of data. They want short sentences, more white space, and summaries in the forms of animations or info graphs. The 2017 focus on data presentation is visualization – charts, pictures, GIFs, etc.

Another aspect of animation is the fluidity of website transition. Websites that utilize animated design pages constantly have a smooth transition as the user scrolls through the site. Old content fades away while new content pops up and appears, which makes an enticingly interactive layout.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs)

SVGs are vector image formats that support interactivity and animation. Rather than being pixel-based, they are composed of vectors⁴. This means they are essentially composed of whatever shape the object is rather than a bunch of tiny squares that form an image.

The great thing about this is they are consistent across devices and when you increase the size your image quality doesn’t go down. Another reason web designers love SVGs is because they don’t slow down the website. They are becoming huge in the web designer’s world.

Bold Typography

There has been a large shift in the typefaces used in recent years. People have started to migrate away from their safe, Helvetica font to a more decorative style. They have introduced contrasting fonts and animated text to shift the focus of their design.

Web designers are also starting to utilize entire pages with a single, yet significant statement about the products or service they are offering⁴ . They have started to draw visitors in with less content and a more “straight-to- the-point” approach.

This typography allows the web design to match the fast-paced world we live in and is usually large, decorative and very attention grabbing. It is very “2017.”

Flashy Colors

With the minimalistic approach in full swing, many web designers have opted to add personality and character into websites using bring, bold colors. A perfect example of this was with the redesign of Instagram’s icon. The initial backlash was huge, but take a second and go revisit their previous logo… Now it seems a bit dreary and outdated. We can all agree that their new logo is much more appealing.

Along with an increase in bold colors, gradients are making a strong reappearance. Both of which tend to work best when paired with a page that is minimal and clean. Welcome to 2017, the brightest year of web design since our grade school PowerPoint presentations.

Conclusion

Whenever new trends for web design are discovered, it’s always exciting. Due to its creative and dynamic nature, there is constantly something to look forward to. 2017 is destined to be the year about personalization, simplification, and intuitive experiences. Let’s enjoy it while we can, because we know 2018 will bring in something new!

Cited Sources

• https://econsultancy.com/blog/64646-15- delicious-examples- of-card- based-web- design
• //microinteractions.com/what-is- a-microinteraction/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaslaurinavicius/2017/01/25/web-design-trends-2017/2/#562af92e1dd0
• https://webflow.com/blog/18-web- design-trends- for-2017

Research Sources

• //www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/top- web-design- trends-for- 2017/
• //www.smartinsights.com/?attachment_id=84904
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaslaurinavicius/2017/01/25/web-design-trends-2017/3/#61ced15f454b