Website design trends for 2014

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We at OWDT wish you a happy, prosperous 2014!

In 2013 we posted blogs about a wide range of important new website development trends. Please check our archives if you missed any of our articles on Responsive Design, full screen design, A/B Testing, evolving mobile website formats, and website language translation software.

We expect Responsive Design to continue its rapid replacement of adaptive design website formats in 2014. Among other recently introduced, rapidly growing trends, look for greater emphasis this coming year on –

Simplified flat screen design

Flat screen design has gained incredible popularity since Apple’s unveiling of iOS7 last fall, rapidly adopted by Google’s Gmail, Facebook, and Windows 8. Why? People are tired of cluttered web pages with intrusive promotional pop ups. Also, simpler website design facilitates improved response to different platforms, providing a quicker, smoother user experience.

User-centered design

Enhanced website design and coordination of social media, including growing real time response capability, will allow greater interactivity between you and your customers. The payoff: when visitors have easy access to updated information about your products, services, blog, and social media posts, conversion rates can increase significantly.

Fixed header bar and parallax scrolling

With longer web pages and mobile browsers, access of fixed, top-of-page menus has become difficult and irritating for users. For this reason, many sites now fix the header bar at the top of the browser window, allowing it to follow visitors as they scroll down the page. Not only does this improve navigation, it also makes it more likely that the visitor will explore your site in depth. Often working in tandem with a fixed header format, parallax scrolling animates background and foreground images and text as you scroll, which helps bring the page to life.

High-resolution screens with large screen images and video backgrounds

Just as standard definition television has been overtaken by high-def signal, high-resolution screens will soon become standard on computers and mobile devices. While these high-resolution screens look great, they require higher resolution images to diminish pixilation. New browsers already facilitate easy downloading of striking, large screen images. And implementation of seamless background videos isn’t far behind.

Greater emphasis on quality of written content in SEO

As Google and many other search engines place more emphasis on high quality user-centered written content, it’s wise to evaluate your own articles and blogs to make sure they meet these emerging higher standards. Simplicity and clarity of content is key. While semantic keyword search remains an important part of the equation, your content also needs to be impeccable, readable on different platforms, and easily searched/read by all standard search engines.