That’s a huge question. You could write entire books about how the design industry has changed and continues to shape and mold our society (and a lot of smart people have!). But let’s just suppose about the last five years or so. How has our industry changed over the last 5 years or so?
Desktop vs Mobile
I would say the biggest change faced by our industry is the movement from desktop-viewed websites to mobile-viewed websites. Just a few years ago it was accepted that you had one version of your website, and then a separately designed and built mobile site. This presented a few problems: increased cost and duplicate content updates.
CSS Media Queries & Responsive Design
CSS media queries have totally reinvigorated how we build websites and spurred the responsive website revolution. Responsive design is quickly becoming the new standard, if it isn’t already. There’s already talk that responsive sites stand (or will stand) higher in Google’s search algorithm.
UI & UX
The way users use the Web is rapidly changing. Users are now using their mobile devices for traditionally desktop-central tasks like word processing, working with spreadsheets, research, etc. That presents a great challenge for web designers to design websites that are easily navigable for touch screens, providing a seamless user-experience from desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
