Responsive Design – One Website for All Devices
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design) defines Responsive Design as “an approach to web design in which a designer intends to provide an optimal viewing experience…across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones)”. It is expected that at the beginning of 2013, 27% of all web traffic in the U.S. will be from users on mobile phones and tablets (www.kontera.com). That number is expected to grow sharply in the coming years. Responsive design allows your content to be taylored for both desktop and mobile users without having to develop multiple versions of your site.
HTML5 & CSS3
All modern browsers and all mobile devices have fully adopted the HTML5! With new features added in HTML5 such as <video>, <audio>, <canvas>, <section>, <article>, <header>, and <nav>, and the integration of scalable vector graphics (SVG) make the design and development of syntactic and multimedia rich websites a far more realistic prospect than ever before. Plus HTML5 enables superior accessibility, clean and clear code, local storage, and better user interaction.
CSS3 brings many useful and exciting features to the web such as rounded corners, drop shadows, alpha channels, web fonts and more that used to require clumbsy code that was not cross-browser compatible or embeddings large images.
Landing Pages – One Page to Tell it All
Simply put, landing pages increase conversion rates! Why? Because landing pages can focus on a single product or promotion. There are no alternate messages or navigation paths for visitors to be distracted by.
JavaScript Based Animation – No More Flash!
Flash had a great run but it’s time is just about done, mostly due to the explosion of web enabled mobile devices and Flash’s poor performance and resource requirements, with no small amount of credit due to the late Steve Jobs for pointing this fact out. Beyond the performance issues, other reasons why JavaScript based animation is gaining in popularity are that Flash is not SEO friendly, is difficult for users with disabilities, and it tends to degrade poorly when viewed on a device without Flash.
Web Forms – Large Fields/Fonts With White Space
Let’s face it, we’re all getting older right? Squeezing as much content onto the screen as popssible is probably squeezing a large percentage of the population out of your website. In 2013 and on we will continue to see web pages, and specifically web based forms, become simpler and use of large fonts, padding and margin spaces.
Increased Use of Large Imagery
With the proliferation of 50mb internet connections and 4G wireless networks more bandwidth is available than ever. We have seen the use of large full-screen background images and sliders and that trend will continue in 2013.
Read more about Volume 9′s website design & development services at our Denver office.