Guest Post by Chuck Longanecker
In January of each year, we flip over the hourglass and, once again, we have everything in front of us. The new year gives us a clean slate, a chance for change and encouragement to evolve the way we do things. In the past, we’ve yielded to client and user requests to pack our website designs full of unrelated features and countless pages of duplicate information. The change we have been waiting for has come - our users have matured. 2010 is the year of Design Simplicity.
Clean and Simple
There are many design trends this year, however, I feel it is important to focus specifically on the movement of Design Simplicity. In fact, as the web evolves, it is our responsibility as designers to keep the order of things. This means fewer pages, less clicks, less clutter and more whitespace. In 2010, clean is King and our users are asking for it. I don’t blame them. With access to an increasing amount of information on the web everyday, our attention span is naturally diminishing. Now, more than ever, design needs to engage the user, provide succinct information and allow them to go on their merry way. Who knows, maybe airlines and banks will even clean up their 1990s design.
Now Design Simplicity does not mean removing functionality or access to information. This trend of simplicity is not as easy as reducing the elements and content in your user interface. To achieve the less is more effect, you have to develop a valuable user experience by utilizing a creative toolset. Think of the iPhone - the greatest innovation in modern mobile phones has only one button.
Single Page Websites
Each time a visitor clicks deeper into your site, a fraction of their interest dies. With the evolution of users, you can get to the point quickly. So in order to keep visitors’ attention, many designers are providing access to the core items needed to make an impression front and center. Think of the homepage as the main interface to all of the website’s content.When you start to layer some of the below items on the list including sliders, modal boxes and toolbars, you can provide pages of information without clicking off the page. iPhone App websites are a great example of single page websites in action.
Sliders
Sliders are a great way to provide indirect and precise content through a simple and visual interface. Instead of giving users heavy navigational options and a smorgasbord of direct content, I expect to see more content available indirectly with the use of slider and decision tree logic on the homepage or main pages of the site. This provides a more distinct website path and an appropriate experience for each user type.
