Just like fashion, web design is subject to trends, some of those trends are good, like the evolution of responsive design allowing for easier viewing on mobile devices while others end up like those white pleather gogo boots in your closet–they've seen better days and now those days are gone.
Here are 10 web design elements that are so over we can't even handle it right now.
1. Flash Just a few years ago, Flash was a great way to create interactive, engaging sites with all the bells and whistles. Now, Flash is going by the wayside in favor of other technologies like HTML5 and CSS3. Flash is not SEO friendly, performs poorly or not at all on mobile devices, and is very difficult to update. In fact, Google recently updated their algorithm to detect pages using flash and gives a warning to mobile and tablet users that the site may not work on their device. In short, just don't do it.
Not pretty. 2. Autoplay Music Sure, that muzak playing in the background of your site makes me feel like I'm right there in your ballroom enjoying a nice gin and tonic, but in reality I'm in a conference room trying to secretly book my weekend vacation while watching my boss talk through a 43-slide presentation. I'll be really embarrassed when my laptop starts playing big band music and I can't figure out how to turn it off since the stop button is all the way at the bottom of the page and looks about three pixels wide. Autoplay music is a great way to annoy just about everyone who views your site and turns an otherwise beautiful user experience into an obnoxious one. If you still want music to set the mood, have your music player default to "off" so those who would like to listen can turn it on and the rest of us can book in peace.
Shh! 3. Crazy Text Effects Think back to the time of MySpace, a time where glitter was animated and text was beveled. Effects like embossing, harsh drop shadows, and scrolling words are a thing of the past. Today's design is focused on readability, simplicity, and device compatibility. That blinking reservations button with twinkling rubies on it just doesn't cut it.
No thank you.
4. Odd Navigation It may seem clever to place your nav buttons on floating clouds in that beautiful landscape image on your homepage, but if guests can't figure out how to navigate your site and quickly find the information they need they'll bounce faster than you can say "more cowbell."
That's right, you navigate via cow head. 5. No Mobile Site According to an eMarketer study, sales from mobile travel bookings are set to total over $26 billion in 2014, up nearly 60 percent from 2013. If you don't have a mobile site, your hotel is missing out on potential bookings, especially with the Millennial crowd.
Bounce! 6. Tables Back in the infancy of the world wide web, tables were used to layout all pages. Now, we have CSS to add styles to pages without the clunky feel of table cells. Just like that scrunchie you only wear at home, nothing says the ‘90s like a website built with rows of tables with thick borders filled with garish colors.
What? 7. Skeuomorphism 2012 brought us Skeuomorphism, the design trend of making virtual objects look like their real-world counterparts in order to make them seem more familiar. This includes things like Apple's former iBook design that depicted a realistic wooden bookshelf filled with tiny pictures of each book. Apart from things that made sense like a wooden bookshelf, skeuomorphism was an epidemic of leather detailing, stitching, woodgrain, and now denim … because apparently pants can tell the weather.
Why? 8. Heavy Reflections Similar to the shiny button effect, heavy reflections give the appearance that objects are sitting either on a mirror or miraculously hovering over water. While some fanboys do indeed think that Apple walks on water, that picture of the iPhone with the blinding reflection no natural sun could produce is a quick way to make your site look dated. Even we weren't impervious to this trend as you can see in the picture below. Yikes. It looks even worse when that heavy reflection is applied to your logo.
Gratuitous doppelgänger. 9. Shiny, Rounded Buttons Nothing says "click me" more than a shiny button that looks like it's been dipped in chrome, right? Wrong. Making a button shiny and bevelled used to be a quick way to make a button stand out. Since it was so easy to do in Photoshop, many designers used this method on their websites. Now, flat design reigns supreme and designers opt for more subtle shading and square edges. Unless you are actually selling chrome plating, keep the shine to a minimum.
So. Shiny. 10. Gradients While flat design in all the rage today, that doesn't mean that you can't use gradients at all. However, they look best subtle and added to give a strong design depth or legibility. When used in a heavy-handed fashion or as a band-aid to a bad design, they'll just end up making your site look unprofessional and dated.
What year is it?
About Kelly ColglazierAs buuteeq's Graphic Designer, Kelly defines and creates the look and feel of buuteeq's marketing efforts including our website, eBooks, infographics, and more.www.buuteeq.com
