Practically speaking, any new web design trends have their roots buried in the past; a new web design style doesn’t occur unpredictably, rather it’s a step-by-step process with every succeeding year seeing small incremental gains, galvanized by fast-moving technological development. That’s how designing for the web works, and this year we can safely say that nothing truly novel will really happen.
The fate of web design is crystal-clear in front of us, we merely need to glimpse at the past to see it. Let’s check out the predictions on the designing front for the year 2014.
jQuery’s dwindling market share
When jQuery landed on the scene it dazed most of the designers. Jquery is a JavaScript library that makes manipulating DOM elements look so simple, and applies across all browsers. Jquery greatly simplifies JavaScript programming.
jQuery is rightly the all-time greatest library, and has become the basic building blocks of sites. All most all the sites are constructed in ‘HTML, CSS and jQuery’.
Nevertheless, there is a sizable number of fault-finders who feel that jQuery has some serious flaws. They complain that jQuery is too big. Despite version 2.0 having relinquished support for IE 6,7 and 8, jQuery is still a hefty file when it comes to ‘load time’. The extra http request and the extra kb is asking a lot for something as basic as opacity tweening.
People find vanilla JavaScript speedier, and more efficient, for anything except for big amounts of DOM manipulation (here jQuery outshine all others).
jQuery may not die out at all – it’s a feature-rich library – but it most likely will lose its market dominance this year.
How to Get Through: Start working on learning the language behind jQuery; learn how document.getElementById() functions. It’ll help give you a feel of vanilla JavaScript, and your ability to work with jQuery will also get a boost.
Mobile Web is as good as dead
The entire web design topography embodies the web designers bias, and fantasies; the mobile web was doomed to die the day someone recommended it as a replacement to responsive design.
The mobile web is a mobile-friendly website design that is designed to run side-by-side with a desktop website. Made exclusively for mobile devices, like a smartphone, it’s a cloned version of its parent site.
The multiple-sites backers justify their point with a typical example – of a restaurant website where the desktop users want a menu displayed on the screen, while mobile users seek directions to reach the business. But everyone is hankering for responsive design – where the same site works well across multiple devices, like smartphones, tablets, desktops.
How to Get Through: Go for multiple sites if you’re certain that users will get value from contrasting content on different devices; but think of these as micro-sites. Build responsive sites that display beautifully on all mobile screen sizes.
:hover is likely to see a big decline
The :hover pseudo-class in CSS is the web’s aboriginal or the native design concept. Closely linked to cursor, it points out when a person is looking to click an element on a web page, and prompts an action. Nonetheless, new devices sans a cursor are landing in the market, challenging the utility of :hover.
Seasoned designers contend that :hover usage is in fact a non-viable practice, because it misleads UX designers into thinking in terms that almost all end users would hardly ever encounter (i.e navigating by employing a cursor). Evidently, exciting hover effects are popping up less and less in recently designed sites.
How to Come Through: In the coming 12 months mobile users will outnumber desktop users, however, it’s unlikely that percentage of desktop users will ever fall below double figures. Mobile-first is a passing trend, and does not in any way indicate that desktop has been pushed to the back burner. The silver-lining is that :hover will experience what’s called a ‘graceful degradation’ – and will keep its slot in the toolbox.
Leave a Reply: