The New Year is a good time to take a moment and reflect upon the past year. Mull over accomplishments, processes, and shortcomings to better understand our industry. I would like to take this opportunity to share some of these reflections and give you my web predictions for 2014.
Customer Adoption of Mobile-First Responsive Web Design
Over the past year, we saw our customer base begin to embrace the concept of mobile-first responsive web design, having us primarily develop websites for devices like smartphones and tablets. I expect this trend to continue to gain momentum in 2014, as mobile devices outpace traditional internet connected computers.
The Rise of Internet Connected Devices
We have seen a lot of buzz around new wearable and internet connected devices like Google Glass, smartwatches, smart TVs, and integrated car dashboard systems. These devices will lead to new web development methodologies regarding how to build websites and applications for these connected devices and their specific user environments.
Flat Design will Evolve
Everywhere you look, from the Windows phone to iOS 7, flat design has taken over. Flat design has helped to remove the unnecessary clutter that made our websites and applications look like their real world counterparts. Allowing UI/UX designers to focus on interactions, functionality and icons/pictographs. I expect, we will continue to see designers refine and push the limits of flat design and how to effectively communicate with a minimalist design philosophy.
Interface Animation and Motion
Animation and motion are often implemented in websites and applications as a form of user feedback. It rewards users when tasks have been accomplished and simplifies the learning process for new users, by animating out the steps involved to use the product. Let’s be honest, who reads user manuals anymore?
Modern Web Development Tools
As website capabilities have grown, thanks in part to web standards and browsers, I expect that we will see a flood of new website development tools become available. New tools like Macaw, Balsamiq, and the Adobe Edge products, to name a few; all have been great additions to our web development arsenal but some gaps in our processes still remain. More developers are building their own homegrown tools to solve these problems and I can’t wait to try them out.
The way in which we design and development our products is perpetually in a state of evolution. I would be interested to hear your predictions for the New Year by leaving a comment below. All the best in 2014.