Everyone is busy with Trump and Sean Spicer and Twitter users are having a field day with new hashtag games revolving around the dynamic duo every day. While most of it is about predicting what all can go awry during Trump’s 4 year tenure, there’s a small section of people wondering what other changes are due this year. There are quite a few blogs talking about how web design will change this year owing to VR and AR. But emerging trends on the web are saying otherwise already.
We agree that it’s not possible to be as infallible as the Oracle while predicting the future of web design and UX, but here are 5 trends that we can see emerging in the realm of web design in 2017:
1. This Will Not be the Year of VR:
As sad and disheartening it may sound, 2017 is not ready for VR technology. The prospect of a truly immersive user experience, while browsing the web or simply watching a video, is in itself simply mesmerizing. But the experts are far from optimizing web languages and websites for such 360-degree UXs.
At the moment, the main complaint we hear is the debilitating cost of the VR gadgets. But if you know where to look, a VR headset can be really cheap. There are quite a few companies besides Google that are optimizing VR gadgets. The real problem with VR is not its cause; it’s the sense of occasion involving it.
As you can see right now, your phone is possibly connected via WiFi and you use WiFi at least 10 times a day to connect to the internet. It is true that we use desktops for better UX, since most websites are still optimized for web design viewing. But most of us are ruled by our lazy selves and our phones are just more easily accessible all the time as compared to our desktops and laptops.
Quite contrary to this, VR is quite an event and an experience that requires extra preparation. Most people won’t put on VR headsets just to see a 360-degree video or play one game! It is just not as mainstream at the moment. We don’t yet envision ourselves browsing Facebook or Pinterest using VR, and unless we do so, it will remain exclusive.
2. AI Will be Ascending:
We are hoping that by the end of 2017 someone will get the concept of AI working. We don’t expect it to pass the Turing test as of now, but with RankBrain becoming mainstream and machine learning taking over the RDBMS world we are sure that 2017 will be the year of AI.
This will be powered by A/B testing that will produce reliable results. By the end of 2017 we might even see a collaborative effort that can unite data from multiple web-based platforms onto one cloud-based platform. This will not eliminate designers from the process. Design implementation will still be absolutely necessary and website designers will be expected to bridge the gap between data organization and data representation.
3. Death to Online Advertising:
Tbh seeing ads pop up every time you are trying to read an article and follow new links is quite annoying. The latest approach of component-based system as web design has been popularized over the years and this brings about better flexibility, consistency and responsive approach towards media cross-compatibility.
2017 will see a new effort for detaching the components from individual websites and delivering contents as brands. For example – as you can already see, a travel website (even a flight booking website) might have hotel listings, local services listing and weather details all pooled in on one screen from different websites.
This will be end of the advertising revenue model as we know it. We will be able to browse information from several tabs, however, by using only one screen.
4. The Web Will be a Beautiful Place Once Again:
Believe it or not, brutalist web design is something most people will condemn by the end of 2017. They are not nice to look at, they are not easy to browse and we see no reason why they should become the ruling trend of 2017. We have already seen websites like WeTransfer and www.stgeorgewebdesign.comgo through a massive UI overhaul to make their landing pages more beautiful.
All websites are bound to become at least responsive, color inclusive and font ready by the end of 2017. By the end of 2017, most website designers will have their own version of beautiful and that will be as far away as possible from the ghastly brutalist web designs we are seeing right now.
5. We Will See a Burst of Fresh Design Tools:
With evolving needs comes evolving tech. we are hoping that the need for creating breathtakingly new and functional websites all web designers will require design tools that have not been seen and used before.
Now imagine that you require prototyping tools, you will have dozens of options to choose from. But if you require vector graphics you’d hardly have three options. The strikingly large number of prototyping tools show us that there are designers out there who are not afraid to show their creative instincts. They are creating new, affordable and exciting apps every day.
With 2017, in-app tool usage will increase beyond comparison. Since we do not have any bias towards beta versions of apps and tools, it will be quite easy for us to progress into this trend quite smoothly this year.
And did we mention? One word you will be hearing from all designers will be “automation”. This will be the term of 2017 that will aim at freeing up your resources and time, so you can indulge in creating something new for fellow designers.
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