2017 is almost here and it’s time to get the heads up on the 2017 web design trends and predictions.

2016 has seen (as expected) a massive growth in clean, flat, parallax designs and the use of big imagery dominating a website. Mobile design has taken off massively due to Google putting a huge emphasis on it and 2016 has seen a real boom in both parallax and mobile websites.

 

1 – Mobile First!

2017 will further expand on that… will we see an emphasis on design to be “mobile first” and “desktop secondary”? Most users now access websites on their phones and the shift is getting bigger and bigger, surely 2017 will see designers start to design for mobile first and desktop second?

Designing for mobile first allows companies, brands and designers to focus on only the core required content and messaging. The smaller screen sizes force designers and marketers to stick to a core fundamental message and drop the “bells and whistles”.

Whilst this isn’t a new web design trend for 2017, it is expected to boom and we expect to see more designs originally being created for mobile and then scaled backwards to desktop devices.

 

2 – More “Flat” designs?

As mentioned in the introduction, 2016 saw a big shift in “flat” designs – a trend following the launch of Windows 10. Whilst advancing from its original debut, the “flat” design has now become “semi-flat” with dimensions and depth added to give it more impact. The “semi-flat” design gives off a really clean and modern look and is emphasised with sleek transition effects and subtle shadows.

 

3 –A step back from over simplicity?

Uber is a great example of over simplicity… you select your location, get an ETA and then you pay & rate your driver – But is it too simple?

The navigation paths that you can take are very limited and controlled by the app, and with research showing users are in some cases getting fed up of being forced along this journey, screen by screen, will we see a shift back and give users a little more freedom to browse and navigate as they wish?

 

4 – Age of Responsive Design!

Responsive design is taking responsive websites on step further. Responsive websites can adapt a website to any screen size, but age responsive design adapts the website to not only the device but to the user. With the data available, it would not be surprising to see 2017 separate the experiences someone aged 7 and someone aged 77 would get from a website. This will involve scaling back complex navigation systems increasing font sizes for the visually impaired and colour schemes being changed depending on ages.

 

5- Centred-split content

This works best for those pages with minimal content – It places the content slap bang in the centre of the screen and surrounds it with smooth effects & transitions to create a striking visual effect.

Split content allows the page to be much wider and allows sections of a page to vary without being controlled by any single element.

Remember…

At ALT Agency, we like to take the contrarian view, once of the first books we had in the office was “Webpages that suck“, All about learning could design from bad design, so be sure to checkout how you can design a truly awful webpage in 2017 – It’s a great fun read!

PS
Be sure to read Part 2 of this series “2017 Web Design Trends – Take 2“