Future Proofing Your Web Design

Blog » Future Proofing Your Web Design

Posted on 13 Feb 2012 12:29

Your web design looks great now, and at the moment it makes your website feel professional while at the same time being easy to navigate and holding and converting your traffic. But the question is, will it still look as good in a year's time? In two year's time? As fashions change, conventions vary and technology improves, what makes a great website inevitably changes as well. And when you see one of those sites that hasn't had a new design in the last 5 years then you instantly know it and instantly it lends a lot less credibility to the content. Of course there is no web design that can go completely unchanged for years without becoming dated and even with the best looking site in the world there will come a time when you need to change it – but that said there are certainly ways that you can make your site stand up to change better and give it more chance of being relevant in the future. Here we will look at a few suggestions.

High Definition Images: One of the things that you can predict in terms of improving technology is the constant improvement in resolution. Soon we will reach 'retinal quality' screens that have such a high definition that they are impossible to differentiate from real objects in the world. Until such time however, we are going to see resolutions increase with each new generation of hardware – so make sure that your backgrounds are large enough to accommodate that or designed in such a way that it doesn't matter if they start repeating.

Contemporary Design: Styles and fashions change online just as they do in the home. A 'modern' bathroom five years ago does not look modern now and the same is true of websites. Your challenge is to be as 'up to date' as possible to give your site the longest shelf life, and at the same time it's to keep the site as 'timeless' as possible with no obvious tropes of the current trends. Currently the most modern looking sites that are likely to date well are the ones that look minimalist with lots of white or light colored space.

Avoid 'Gimmicks': When a new technique comes out in web design then you suddenly start to see everyone using them. For instance when internet connections got good enough to stream music then everyone had music playing in the background. Likewise when Flash was first made available many websites became entirely flash based with unnecessarily complex animations and navigation. Of course as new technologies come along that's then a sure way to mark yourself as dated, so remember: less is more.

Speaking to your web design company with regards to your web design is the best way to make sure that you make something that's built to last. At the same time make sure to look around the web and to see which web designs stand out in a positive way – you'll notice those that have stood the test of time and those that look like they were made on a ZX Spectrum.

Patrick is passionate writer who loves to write articles on web-design, e-commerce and SEO. In professional career is manages web design company named yarraweb situated in Melbourne.

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