Trends in website design solutions are on the move; they have entered advanced levels of creativity and design. In recent times, there has been a surge in the popularity of both responsive and adaptive web designs.

However, these two designs have to some degree, overlapped together, and the result has been nothing but stellar. In the following article, we will be reviewing some of the key differences in both designs while also examining the recent website trends.

The two models of website design, responsive and adaptive, are both user-centric and aim to provide users with a comfortable web interface across a multitude of devices.

With responsive design, there is overall little to no variance in the usage across different devices. Adaptive design is a little different and caters the users based on their devices and device-specific features.

Upon receiving a user request for information serving, the device detects the end user’s device configurations and provides a custom tailor-made experience. However, there is a drawback to this form of design as it can result in non-consistent experiences across devices.

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To sum it up in slightly technical terms,

  • Responsive design is client-side when all the information is delivered to the user, and then the client’s browser adjusts the page view according to the window dimensions of the browser.
  • Adaptive design, on the other hand, is more server-side, meaning that prior to the page delivery, the server detects the attributes of the device and serves a version of the website that is optimized for the device dimensions and native features.

Next up, we will discuss some of the common web trends of this year:

User Interface Elements:

Many user patterns have matured to the point that they can have little to no innovation in their implementation. Some of the key elements include:

  • Micro-interactions: Micro-interactions are the tiny interactions that you make when turning off your alarm or liking a status update. A Micro-interaction integrated into web design has become increasingly common. While we advocate including such elements in your interface, it should also be emphasized that they must be kept as simple and effortless as possible.
  • Card Layouts: The design’s pioneer Pinterest resulted in the proliferation of this stacked card layout across various applications and websites. The cards are presented as informational chunks and act like content containers. The rectangular boundaries allow easy re-arrangement for catering to different devices.
  • Long Scroll: Unless you visit a really outdated website, placing the content above the fold is something that doesn’t happen anymore. Most mobile users are accustomed to long scroll and the long scroll works well for sites that want to lure users through storytelling. The scroll can be further broken down into clearer sections.

Material Design:

The brainchild of Google, Material Design is the new design statement and is perhaps an older well-groomed sibling of Flat Design. Material Design uses shadow effects and emphasizes upon user movements to make the interactions feel more realistic; the end result; is a clean and modernistic design with a keen focus on user interface.

Responsive Design:

The responsive design owes its popularity to the rise in mobile users. It is relatively simple to build. However, it has prerequisites enfolded in order to be completely functional and error-free. For instance, JavaScript usage should be cut down as most of the components viable on desktops won’t be needed on mobile devices.

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Similarly, third-party scripts should also be monitored. A good practice when designing a responsive website is to performance test the website multiple times to ensure a smooth user experience. Combine the website with minimalism and cards, and you have your ideal low-weight website that would provide the ideal experience.

Flat Design:

The best practice from yesteryear and perhaps the biggest source of inspiration for the material design is still the in-thing with website designing. In terms of flat design, it is better to emphasize on producing long shadows and having a vibrant color palette while keeping the typography as clean and simple as possible. A flat design coupled with minimalism is still an ideal web design.

Hesitancy towards the adoption of both web designs stems from the commonly perceived misconception that both these designs adversely affect site loading speeds. It should be kept in mind that with greater broadband speeds and compression of design packages, websites can now be loaded within a fraction of the time.

Therefore, a good web design can work in tandem with instant loading speeds. Further on, it must also be mentioned that search engines prefer to crawl in responsive websites as compared to simple mobile templates.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of having an adaptive or responsive web design Dubai is that it allows you to cater both mobile and desktop consumers with the same website.

To conclude, it must be noted that trends represent popular techniques; however, they should only be adopted if they blend well with your end audience. The interest of the user should be the basis of your website design.

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