Discussion: Whats the Next Big Web Design Trend?

I have to agree with Danny in that usability will be the next “thing”. I’ve had a few clients ring me up asking for more “stuff” to be going on in their websites. On enquiry, “stuff” equated to things that move around, flash about and other such-likes.

For a good while I’ve been more focused on making sure that things are as semantic as possible in the environment being used, rather than cramming in aforementioned “stuff”.

Another area I can see developing is new technologies in production sites. Progressive enhancement will undoubtedly, to me, become commonplace in many production sites. E.g. box-radius; new browser? Sweet, site looks better. Older one? Too bad, blocky for you.

Things such as the Universal IE6 stylesheet look like an interesting way to go for “discontinuing” old browsers: http://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/

Could not agree more – I’ve mentioned this on a few blogs recently but I genuinely see useability coming back in a VERY big way.

With the popularity of blogs, there seem to be countless websites floating around, often produced by some real geniuses, that look incredible but are next to impossible to navigate effectively. I always test them by seeing if I can find what I’m looking for qucikly, WITHOUT using search fields. I have to say, I am absolutely amazed at how many fail this simple test.

I think more and more designers are coming round to the idea that true creativity doesn’t lie in producing grungey, hand-drawn websites, but in working out how to make these high-content sites actually useable!

Obviously, HTML5 will have a pretty major impact and, while I’ve not really managed to bring myself to look into it in any major detail yet, it looks pretty damn sweet in terms of producing semantic, clean code.

Let’s hope so anyway…

I don’t know if you can call usability a design trend. Usability is just suppose to come all wrapped up in the package. Making an amazing looking web design, should from the get go consist of a user friendly orientation. It’s a standard not a feature. On the other hand, currently I’m revising my web site design, with not only a great look in mind but I’m particularly focused on load speed. Maybe it is my newly developed thing…