Web Design Trends for 2015

Design trends for 2015 center around organization, and improving user experience. Clear messages that cut to the point but are not pushy and in your face engage users and keep them on your website. Look for these trends as you browse the internet this year and see if they effect your experience on websites. You may not even notice. The best design is always something that is simple and just works, without having to think about it. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Steve Jobs

This approach to design revolves around the idea that no matter what device a user visits your website with, their experience is personalized to their device. Screen size, platform, orientation are flexible. Images, text, contact forms, everything on your webpage can be resized on the fly, and CSS makes this possible. Websites built today have the ability to respond to users. The need for different and separate websites no longer exists. Tablet, desktop, mobile, vertical, horizontal, device and orientation there are hundreds of options for ways to view the internet, and the options and devices are growing and changing every day. Responsive design websites have all these device options programmed into one website.

Let’s face it, when you visit a website for the first time you judge it based on the initial thing you see. Trust, and the desire to stay are made in the first 5 seconds, much like meeting a person for the first time. If you choose to stay on the site, looking for information buried in pages is cumbersome. Combine that with the use of a mobile device and you’ve already lost the user. Longer scrolling pages, however, fix this issue. When your on a mobile device is it easier and more intuitive to scroll? Or zoom to in a use a menu? It’s more intuitive to scroll and that allows for more interaction with your website.

Typography is an art and is the key to good design. Today's internet allows for the use of any font that has ever been created. Google provides thousands of fonts for free to designers and programmers to use on websites. You’re not limited to those thousands of fonts either. Any font you can find or create yourself can be used on a website. Icons can even be created as fonts. Icon fonts eliminate the need for graphic images that load slowly. A good designer uses fonts that create a hierarchy, emphasizing certain parts of your message over others. A stylish typographic design can make or break a website.

We have all seen microintergrations on the web. Forms that ask for your email or information that shows up over everything out of the blue. They pop-up, get your attention and require an action to get past them and onto a website. Microintergrations don’t have to just be forms. They can be videos or any number of engaging experiences. They can add to your user experience, keep them engaged and on your website.

Simple, elegant buttons with subtle hover animation are not only aesthetically pleasing, they work well with large background photos and videos. They are discreetly classy with an outline and they eliminate the pushy salesmanship of buttons that demand your attention. They still get the same use as the older style buttons but keep your website clean with an even more focused message.

Ever been on Pinterest? This is a great example of card design. This type of design is a great way to present general topics and allows designers to organize information in a clean and simple fashion that’s versatile. Rearranging these cards for responsive designed websites provides a way to keep a consistent experience from one device to another.

A little refresher, flat design is the use of solid colors and simple icons often in squares. Flat design 2.0 is actually called, Material Design. This was unveiled by none other than Google. Is there anything they can’t do? They describe it as creating “a visual language that synthesizes classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science.” Basically, material design uses the same concepts of flat design but adds very subtle almost unnoticeable gradients, layering, or motion. The simplicity of flat design, just taken a step further.

Let’s face it, information on a screen is not only non-engaging or personal, it’s boring and not creative. Finding creative ways to convey your message, relate to users, and stand out, engages users and keeps them on your website for longer periods of time. Not all websites are suited for storytelling. However, being open to the idea that your content can be organized in a way that keeps a user on your website is the goal of every site on the web, and should be yours too. If your not engaging users, your losing them.


These things along with Large Background Images and Video, Parallax Scrolling, and information as graphics are going to become more common on the web in 2015. Attention needs to be paid to engaging users and creating a better overall experience on websites. Interacting with users instead of just presenting information will keep users on your website and make you standout for all the best reasons. You will be remembered, revisited and contacted.