Novelty or Necessity

With the online space evolving more and more each day, websites technologies are advancing to match the latest trends. However, some of these so called 'trends' seem to be more of a website novelty than a necessity. Keep reading as we break down the latest website trends for Summer 2016.

Flat Design

For those of you who've never heard of flat design before then let me elaborate. Flat design is a minimalistic design approach which emphasizes usability. It uses a clean open space with crisp edges and a two dimensional/flat illustration. Flat design makes use of minimalistic style, but an increased use of elements such as drop shadows, gradients and textures, giving that subtle illusion of three dimensions.

So now you know what is it, you'll want to know whether it's a must or should you leave it in the dust. Well, flat design is a website trend that isn't something you need to implement on your website, although it's something that's going to stick around. With all this in mind we're going to give it the stamp of novelty.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free digital toolkit provided by Google to enable you to track user flow and interactivity on your website. To be able to use this tool, you need to implement tags on your website specifying what information you'd like to be 'fired' from that tag. To hear more about the ins and outs of Google Tag Manager, watch the official Google Tag Manager: Key Concepts video.

So how will all this help you with your website? Well it allows you to track user journeys to find areas where improvements can be made to enhance the user's experience.

So what are my final thoughts on Google Tag Manager? Necessity.

Parallax Scrolling

One of the biggest web design styles trending in recent years is parallax scrolling. It's basically the background of a website moving at a slower rate to the foreground creating a 3D effect as you scroll down your page. There's not a great deal to say about parallax scrolling besides the fact that it looks cool! Having another element like parallax on your website helps to enhance your user's visual experiences. Saying this, it's not something that is essential to have on your website, so it only leaves me with one option and that's to say parallax is definitely a novelty.

Flat Design  Parallax Scrolling  Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Now I know what you're thinking "responsive website design started back in 2004, why are you including it in this list?" Well you are correct, but the reality is that having a responsive website is the norm, we simply would not design non-reponsive websites! 

Love it or hate it, responsive design is here to stay and here's just a small list of reasons why; it's better, faster, it provides a smarter user experience, it's cost effective, it's search engine optimized, and it improves your conversion rates. So responsive website design? Necessity.

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