Darcy Paterson Blog Design Trends that will impact you in 2018
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Design Trends that will impact you in 2018

By on December 30th, 2017

Websites will start to look and feel much different in 2018. This is the result of new CSS standards for web browsers. Exciting times ahead!

The new CSS Grid standard is providing designers of websites and user-interfaces a lot more flexibility in how they layout information across devices. With CSS Grid, you’ll start to see websites that look-and-feel a lot more like printed paper.

Up-and-Down is not the only option

CSS Grid allows designers to challenge the dominant “up-down” scroll. Expect to see horizontal “left-right” scrolling start to make an appearance. Vertical scrolling became the standard for websites as a result of everyone having smart-phones. It made sense to design for that device first, laptop/desktop second.  However, for laptop and desktops the experience will be richer because there’s more real estate for design.

With horizontal, landscape, designers will have the flexibility to treat the screen as a stage and selectively transition content into and out of the stage. With the addition of some well placed animation, layouts on landscapes can give users riche experiences since tapping and scrolling with a thumb won’t be the only way to interact with the interface.

More Animation

Animation can be an excellent way to provide practical… and… interesting interfaces. I expect to see books illustrated with moving animations. More magazine style websites to do the same with infographic content like charts that interact with the user.

3D

Years ago when I first started designing for the web, I used Macromedia Shockwave to publish 3D models that users could interact with online. The problem then was not a lot of people used Shockwave and interaction was limited to zooming in and out, or rotating the camera around in one place. Pretty boring.

In 2018, browser support for WEBGL, the rendering engine for 3D in browsers is a reality. If you’re a company that builds houses, develops commercial real estate, manufactures physical products, or anything that 3-dimensional you’ll benefit from 3-D in the browser. Users can interact directly with your product.

All That and More

2018 is going to be a pivotal year for design. Don’t get left behind. Talk to me about any of the upcoming changes and how they’ll impact your business.

Talk to me at darcypaterson.ca/contact.

 

 

 

 

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