Winter 2016

Tom Osborne, Design Director at Viget

● Three villains–what to beware of

● Hero trends–what to focus on instead

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Templates and automated design tools help

us get online but they don’t help us get

noticed.

Villain #1

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“In the act of creativity, being careful guarantees sameness and mediocrity, which means

your work will be invisible.” George Lois, author of “Damn Good Advice”

Source: Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential

Extensive template galleries offer designs for many different platforms. They offer good structure and elegantly designed frameworks. However, if not customized they won’t differentiate enough to help us stand out.

Platforms like The Grid promise to automate and curate designs based on your content. This is progress in an interesting direction but will it be enough to get noticed?

Brands that use relevant imagery through illustration, photography, video, or infographics will create more memorability within their market sector.

Brands that we visit often will offer more content custom tailored to our likes and interest as they get to know us better.

Spend valuable time on your narrative through well

articulated text and supporting visuals.

Low End: DIY

Middle: Find a freelancer High End: Hire a designer or agency.

The demand for online video and interactive

entertainment is on the rise as is the use of

mobile devices. Cost prohibitive data plans

mean that it will still be important for the

web to be fast, light, and snappy.

Villain #2

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Syndacast predicts 74% of all internet traffic

in 2017 will be video.

Source: Syndacast.com

Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube, HBO, ESPN, and so many more are fighting for our screen time. In the music biz, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and more are doing the same.

The rise in streaming content comes after recent pushes by Microsoft, Apple, Google, and more to “flatten” design to help speed up delivery of graphical elements.

Source: flatvsrealism.com

As consumers, we want to find what we’re looking for quickly and easily. Then once we find something we watch, listen, play, read, learn, and experience deeply.

Source: Apple.com

Don’t overwhelm your audience with too many

choices.

Be cautious and wise with use of data-sapping content.

Quickly get users to useful, immersive, and enjoyable

destinations.

As we age, more of us will encounter

disabilities — visual, hearing, mobility, or

cognitive. Our tolerance for prohibitive

access will decrease.

Villain #3

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“In the US, about 75 million people have some type ofphysical disability.”

Source: Disabled-world.com

“Of today's 20 year-olds, just over 1 in 4 will become disabled

before they retire.”

Source: Disabled-world.com

Most families have or will have a loved one with some form of impairment. The more we embrace the idea that technology is designed to help us all, the more we’ll see beneficial business opportunities.

Well-formatted, machine-readable text benefits both search engine optimization and screen reading technology for visual impairments.

Font style, text size, and color contrast all contribute to better readability.

Source: Viget.com

Studies have shown that imagery paired with text leads to faster comprehension.

Be a good web citizen. Educate yourself on barriers to

comprehension and access.

Hire an expert, if you need to.Be inclusive, to those of us with disabilities and impairments by

implementing good accessibility practices.

Sameness Bloat Exclusion

At the end of the day, it’s unique, interesting, and useful content that draws us in and keeps us coming back for more.

When wayfinding works in understandable, sensible, and predictable ways, we find better destinations more quickly and consume them deeply.

Inclusive and accessible content is best for humanity and a tremendous business opportunity for anyone looking to gain an edge on competition. The web is meant for us all.

Sameness Bloat Exclusion

I’m a designer that leads a team of designers at

Viget. We design and build extraordinary web-

based software for a variety of clients from many

different industries. Learn more at Viget.com.

Twitter: _@troz or @viget

Thanks for listening.

Villain #4

● Squarespace: http://www.squarespace.com/

● The Grid: https://thegrid.io/

● Freelancer.com: https://www.freelancer.com/

● Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/

● Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/

● Flat vs. Realism: http://www.flatvsrealism.com/

● Disabled World: http://www.disabled-world.com/

● WebAIM: http://webaim.org/

● Color Contrast: https://viget.com/inspire/color-contrast

● 2015 Design Trends: https://2015.avocode.com/

● Designing with banner advertising: https://viget.com/work/wral

● Designing for accessibility: https://viget.com/inspire/designing-for-accessibility-what-to-watch-for

● Accessibility in projects: https://viget.com/inspire/how-to-implement-accessibility-in-agency-projects-part-1

● Accessibility costs: https://viget.com/advance/accessibilitys-costs-are-lower-than-you-think

● How to work with designers: https://abookapart.com/products/youre-my-favorite-client

● Xerox: http://www.office.xerox.com/latest/COLFS-02UA.PDF

● Syndacast: http://syndacast.com/video-marketing-statistics-trends-2015/

● Ooyala: http://go.ooyala.com/rs/447-EQK-225/images/Ooyala-Global-Video-Index-Q2-2015.pdf

● DisabledWorld: http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/

● Viget: https://viget.com/inspire/color-contrast

● NeoMam: http://neomam.com/interactive/13reasons/

● A List Apart: http://alistapart.com/article/accessibilityseo

This presentation is available on Slideshare.net at: http://www.slideshare.net/trozbo/web-trends-2016