It’s that time of year again! Our team put their thinking caps on to consider what’s to come in web development, design, and tech in 2018. Here are some of our predictions.
Sites that support digital assistants
“Perhaps sites will start to be formatted to support queries from Alexa and Google Home. For example, if you asked Alexa to read Zivtech's latest blog post, it could do so.
I also think it would be cool if browsers could communicate with websites to provide all of your contact and billing information as needed (with your permission), more like how an app does. Rather than just trying to fill in form fields for you, it would make it really easy to share your information, sign up for things, or buy things from any site.”
Jody Hamilton, Co-founder/CTO
Wider spread use of accessibility technology
“Accessibility technology has introduced a lot of metadata to make it easier for disabled users to get a comprehensive experience on a web page. This technology could be leveraged further by voice activated devices to access various sections of web pages.”
Alban Bailly, Principal Front-end Developer
Net neutrality repeal effects
“I think we’ll see wider spread consumer use of VPNs for privacy and new services tailored to circumventing net neutrality restricted content”
Jason Moore, Systems Engineer
User friendly videos
“As more media organizations euphemistically ‘pivot to video,’ organizations that provide friendlier UI will be much more popular than those that do not. For example, text summary/full transcript, play on hover/click vs autoplay, skip to keyframe, skip commercial, list recommended videos instead of autoplay next videos, and pause when scrolled off the screen.”
Dan Zinkevich, Developer
Continuous flow of content
“I predict that we’ll stop thinking about content in groups of pages so often, and more as individual units that you can scroll or click to from outside a static menu. We have to consider what’s appropriate for each user type, but as the usage and understanding of different workflows/patterns increases, we can start to shift how visitors use navigation and what they rely on.
I see more and more sites that don’t have an omnipresent navigation, and treat the screen size as more of a canvas to have information appear as opposed to a scroll. Scrolling reveals another paragraph in place of the previous one and navigation options appear only when it makes sense to present options. The experience still flows in a linear way, but more linear through time, rather than down a static page. As our patience wears down with the constant access to information, we want websites to give us what we want or need without having to look for it.”
Jen Rovner, Lead UX/UI Designer
More flat design elements
“Flat UI design is becoming more and more common. I think this trend will continue as users grow more accustomed to processing flat elements on websites.”
Kaci Kwiatek, Graphic Design & UX Intern
Mobile design focus and bold typography
“Now that mobile browsing has surpassed desktop, designing for the web will continue to be influenced heavily by mobile design and user behavior. For example, we will likely be seeing more websites with navigation and sticky elements placed at the bottom of a layout.
In the past few years, large, vivid images have become a common presence in web design. The shift towards detailed, bold typography has started to take effect, and I think the trend will continue. This is no coincidence; typographic designs can scale and render faster than images, especially on mobile devices. It's also part of a broader embrace of minimalism to provide a more focused and uncluttered user experience.”
Yujean Park, UX/UI Designer
More personalized experiences
"With the amount of information online and the popularity of content marketing, it's become more and more difficult for marketers and content writers to resonate with their audience in a meaningful way. Technology will continue to evolve to collect more sophisticated data about users in order to better inform targeting efforts. Site design may also evolve to support highly specific and personalized user journeys. Content writers will need to do more thorough research on their audiences in order to create more individualized experiences."
Christine Germeroth, Marketing Manager