You should have a responsive website that is optimized for mobile devices. With mobile usage growing every year, responsive web design can make or break a customer’s impression of your website. Your mobile site must be responsive and visitors should not have problems switching between desktop and mobile.
But responsiveness is only one step in creating a standout design. In 2014, there are many mobile design trends you should consider. These are the top 3 mobile design trends.
Simpler Design:
A word that most people have never heard of in tech design was skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism refers to the use of real-world visual references in order to represent something online. Think of the diskette icon that stands for “save” and it’s still there long after the 3.5″ floppies were thrown into the great e-waste bin. Late 2013 was a big year for Apple when it finally abandoned skeuomorphic design in favor of flat design. Apple made it clear that simple design was back and in large numbers.
Design-savvy companies can do more with less, from startups to large corporations like Apple. According to The Next Web, content is still the king but simple content makes it even more valuable. Simpler content will be the king in 2014 and beyond, according to The Next Web. This refers to websites that are designed this] is short bursts, Twitter style. Your mobile site can represent simplicity much better.
Many companies like Google have gone flat. Because gradients can be difficult to represent, Google decided to make its logo flat. This makes it both mobile-friendly as well as more visually appealing.
The large images at the homepage tops (also known as hero areas), will become increasingly fashionable through 2014. Similar to article-heavy websites, mobile-friendly design trends include removing the sidebar and focusing only on content.
Resolution independence:
Device constraints will become less important in resolution. Wikimedia Commons Resolutions Chart
Design consensus is that desktops will increasingly resemble mobile. There will be growing pains in mobile design until then. Resolution independence is one of the most recent innovations to smoothen out the differences between user interfaces.
Screens can now hold more pixels per inch (PPIs) as technology improves. So far, so good! Pixel density is the number of PPIs that are rendered on different screens. Different devices have different pixel densities. Here is where the problems start. This is where problems begin. The size of the same object rendered on different screens will differ based on their respective pixel densities. This can cause blurriness and trouble with clickability. Users often use multiple devices at the same time. This is why resolution independence is so important.
Mobile interfaces can be resolved independently. It intelligently scales design elements to avoid the issues that plague mobile. Although it sounds complex, this is a great solution for multi-screen websites.
Device Agnosticism:
For mobile users, it can be frustrating to have to go back to a website on a desktop. Many users have had to struggle with mobile access. This frustration is not only common but can also be fatal to a business. A study in lead-generation showed that 17% filled out forms via mobile when there were two fields. This number dropped to 3% when the third field was added. These problems can be fixed with device agnosticism.
A good device-agnostic design ensures that your website looks great on any device, no matter what it is viewed on. While responsive design is all about creating a mobile-friendly website, device agnosticism takes you back. Device agnosticism reduces the importance of the technology that your site is accessed by, by bringing design back into the foundation of the site.
Device agnosticism is the best example of where “content is king”. Don’t be rigid about your website’s dimensions when designing or redesigning it. One user experience expert says that device agnosticism is based on templates, ” blueprints, and guidelines” rather than concrete, precise measurements of design. Because device-agnostic design emphasizes flexibility over rigid dimensions, visitors to your site will see the same spacing of your content regardless of their tech.
Your company should be incorporating new ideas in order to keep up with the latest trends in device usage and design developments. These are just some of the many steps you can take beyond responsive design to keep up with the mobile revolution. And look great doing so. Have you already included any of these elements in your website’s design? We would love to hear from you in the comments. Contact us if you would like to learn more about the LA mobile design agency’s capabilities with these trends.
