Christmas is almost here. As we wind down into the festivities and the New Year, this is a good time for reflection on ourselves, our families, and our business practices. There are the 3 basic terms we think sum up this year’s trends: attention grabbing, simplicity, and efficiency. Everyone seems to get busier each year. You know the feeling; you probably took on more commitments this year. Whether that’s the case for your customers or not, we’ve all gotten used to not waiting for anything. We have PVR where if we time it right we never have to wait through another commercial in our life. So it’s not surprising that this year’s trends all point toward making a more efficient experience for users. Trends from 2010: Bold faced logos and giant images Bold logos and titles accomplish two things. First, they capture attention; second, they inform someone quickly of something important about your site. Three, they take the place of intro pages. Intro pages are becoming increasingly annoying and obsolete. Think about it this way, if your page had a long intro animation, many people will not wait the time it takes to read through all this info. Giant images, on the other hand, might not save anyone any time but they do grab someone’s attention in less time. And efficiency of advertising is an important piece. Trim down the flash Mmm flash. We've discussed this a few times, flash is pretty. While you might like it, many mobile devices don't. So this next year designers will continue to pare down the amount of flash used in the typical websites so that websites stay pretty and accessible.
Mobile Friendly websites: We talked abut this last month. Smartphones have been around for years, but smartphone use has increased astronomically this year and with Christmas in a few days you can expect that number to grow even more. Smartphone sales are not about to slow down, so you can expect an increase in the number of sites that are mobile friendly, in the next year. There will be changes in the New Year that we cannot predict, but these are the trends that we think are here to stay.
Want to learn more? Call Commerx today (403) 301-3883 or visit www.commerx.com to find out how Commerx can help you create a cutting edge website that will stand the test of time.
| 
