Keeping up with web designing trends is important so your website always looks current and can easily achieve its goals. Since web design is a process that is constantly changing and evolving, this means occasionally re-evaluating existing designs and making upgrades to eliminate stale elements and introduce fresh ones.
Turn to the experts offering web upgrade services for help and see how they can keep your website looking and performing its best by ditching these 7 most outdated elements and replacing them with effective and current solutions.
1. Homepage Image Sliders and Carousels
As useful as homepage sliders and image carousels were initially thought to be, web designing studies on their use suggest they are really a distracting waste of valuable homepage real estate.
Improve web design effectiveness, load time, and user-friendliness by replacing hero image sliders with one large background image. Ditch the image sliders and use more traditional navigation and design features to get users to the content you want them to see.
Video backgrounds were also popular for a while; however, like image sliders their day has come and gone, mainly due to their ineffectiveness.
2. Non-Responsive Web Design
The massive move from desktop to mobile has been ongoing for over five years. Responsive design that can function well on both is no longer an option;it’s a necessity. Any website still built on an outdated fixed-width or standard fluid layout needs some serious redesigning by web upgrade services to make it responsive and able to perform on any device.
3. Hamburger Menus for Anything Other Than Mobile
One of the main, space-saving components of many responsive, mobile-first websites is the iconic hiding hamburger menu. It is an essential tool used by web designing experts challenged with the task of fitting more content into less space. As great as the hamburger menu is on mobile sites, it has no place on desktop sites and can actually reduce site effectiveness.
4. Ad and Popup Overkill
There is no doubt that on-page advertising and popups annoy users. If they must be used in a web design, it should be done in moderation and in the right ways. Avoid stuffing pages with ads that can make it difficult to determine what part of the page is advertising and what is actual content.
Position popups in key, fixed locations that make it obvious they are ads. Popups should be used sparingly and in effective places. They must also be easy to close without continuously popping up again and again once they’ve been closed.
5. The Wrong Color Palette
Color trends in website design change frequently and are one of the more common reasons to use web upgrade services. Outdated color palettes and techniques in which color is used on a website can very easily reduce a site’s effectiveness. Designers must keep up with color and layout trends to ensure a site is attractive, eye-catching, and looks modern and fresh.
6. Overuse of Stock Photography
Photography and product images are an essential need for most websites. Yet stock photography is obvious and can make a site look impersonal. Users want to see real photos, quality product photos, and real people interacting. Stock photography is out. Professional custom photography is definitely the better choice now.
7. Flash and Javascript
Due to the many problems it brings including security issues, flash should be eliminated from all websites. Google has even begun blocking flash applications, displaying instead an HTML5 video player. On the other hand, Java which is very safe and extremely useful, can download a page and give users too much to see all at once. Use Java in moderation and replace any remaining Flash content with HTML5.
To keep web design functioning effectively, web designing firms must stay up-to-date on current trends and technology that are driving the industry. Periodic web upgrade services to eliminate outdated elements and ideas and replace them with newer, more functional ones will guarantee the best results for all clients!
