Each year new trends emerge and each year some trends go away. This is the natural cycle of things. Staying on top of, or, at the very least, with the trends can help you, as a web developer or designer, produce creations that are current, that your clients will love, and that are always relevant. Below we will outline just a few of the many current and emerging trends in web development. Look into the ones that interest you further and keep an open mind and eye when surfing the web for the latest ideas to jump out at you.
Social Networking
This one is not going away, folks. I waited for the downfall of twitter, a service I was certain would be a flash in the pan but it hasn’t happened yet. Thank goodness I didn’t hold my breath.
Be aware of emerging social networking trends and services. On that’s recently cropped up is a site called Pinterest. I can’t attest to how long it’ll be relevant but there sure are a lot of people jumping on and it couldn’t hurt to take a few minutes and create a profile for your business, or a personal page and pin your products.
Keeping up with social networking trends also keeps the line of communication up between you and your target customers or audience which can help you in a number of different ways like crowdsourcing, feedback, and issue resolvement. Whatever your opinion of social networking, know your audience and seek to connect with them on the appropriate front.
CSS3 HTML5
Though still in their infancy, CSS3 and HTML5 are coming! True: many internet users do not have browsers that can handle the capabilities of these two coding languages but almost all the most recent browsers do and the rest are on their way. It’s better to be prepared for these coming changes and learn as much as you can about CSS3 and HTML5 lest you get left behind with the rest of the people with un-updated browsers!
Apps
I hear the word ‘app’ much more often than ‘software’ and that’s just the way things are going. As web developers it’s important that we begin to understand and, indeed, learn to develop apps for those are the wave of the future. This is because of…
Mobile Development
In no time at all desktop computers will become most people’s secondary devices while tablets and mobile phones will become primary. For many this is already the case but I suspect it will become the norm very soon. So it is important that we learn to develop sites and apps and everything not just around the standard web browser size but for mobile too. This is going to be a massive adjustment for some along the line and much less of an issue for the prepared.
So be prepared!
Layout
Going along with the aforementioned, the layouts of websites are going to be changing. There is going to be more of an emphasis on clean, robust designs with plenty of whitespace. Custom fonts that are large with very noticeable calls to action are going to become the standard. Just look around at all the groundbreaking sites and social networks. They all have very similar looks and themes and these are what consumers are going to start wanting and requesting more and more of in the very near future.
Happy developing!
