Tag: UX

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Biggest Challenge for Web Design Firms

I’ve been asked: “What will be the biggest challenge for web design and hosting firms in the next few years, and why?” Well, here’s my answer:

The Biggest Challenge

The biggest challenge will be keeping up with the new devices, experiences, and how users interact with them. Touch screens, HTML 5, CSS3, and (do I dare say?) holographic interactive websites are just going to keep advancing at a breakneck speed. Today’s Samsung Galaxy and iPhone UI isn’t tomorrow’s immersive website experience.

The advancements in touch screen technology and mobile phones transformed the way we see the web. I believe the next big jump in experiencing (and designing) the web will involve 3D and holographic immersion. We already experience 3D in theaters (and sometimes even at home), what’s to stop us from taking a page out of Minority Report, Ender’s Game, and pretty much every other Sci-Fi movie and actually “touch” the web in front of us? When that happens, web designers are going to have to step up and design for this new environment.

Thanks for reading!

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How Has the Design Industry Changed?

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.