
Web Design Trends - citizenblr
http://weavora.com/blog/2012/10/21/web-design-trends-we-love
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ef4
The first item, long single page designs, has _always_ been a favorite of
skilled marketers. It goes back even to pre-web snailmail marketing.

In comparison tests, longer copy almost always wins. You keep offering more
and more reasons to buy, and you keep converting more and more readers.

This relates to one of the basic observations about selling: people don't like
to change their minds. They won't spontaneously go from "no" to "yes". But if
you offer a new piece of information, they can change their mind without
admitting they were "wrong" before. Every new piece of information, or new
story, is another opportunity for them to get to "yes".

Obviously, the copy also needs to be _good_.

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crazygringo
Seriously -- I am _dying_ to get some kind of good, nuanced study on this.

On the one side, defending long-form copy ads are David Ogilvy (probably
popularly considered to be the greatest advertising genius ever, and who
rigorously statistically tested all his methods), and today, companies like
Apple.

On the other side, are lots of Web 2.0 A/B testing results that basically say,
shorter is better.

Now, I'm sure there are times when each are right. But I've never heard anyone
explain _when_ long-form is better vs _when_ short-form is better, and when
each performs worse.

Is it high-end products (long copy) vs low-end products (short copy)? Is it
"experience" products vs "utility" products? Is it left-brain vs right-brain
consumers? Is it impulse buys vs researched buys? I could invent a million
ideas, but I want proof, not hypotheses.

I am positively desperate for some kind of researched and statistically
backed-up explanation that figures out the factors on both sides!

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blauwbilgorgel
They don't release their exact statistics, but Conversion Rate Experts are
pretty authoritative on the subject of scrolling vs. fold.

<http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/scrolling-tips/>

    
    
      In split tests, long pages often beat shorter pages.
    
      As a rule of thumb, your page should contain at least as 
      many words as you’d use when selling your product or
      service face to face.  
    
      The winning page we designed for SEOmoz was six times 
      longer than the control, which it outperformed by 52%.
    
      Whenever someone tells you that they’d never buy from a 
      long page, remind them how long Amazon’s pages are.
    
      Long pages are effective, but only if your users know that
      they can scroll and are given compelling reasons to do so.
    

<http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/>

    
    
      The redesigned page is about 20 times as long as the
      control... new page outperformed the control by 30%.
    

[http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-
conver...](http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-
conversion/long-copy-short-copy.html)

    
    
      In our initial micro-test, long copy outperformed short 
      copy by 40.54%. Click-through traffic sent to the short
      copy page was unprofitable (-14% ROI), while traffic sent
      to the long copy page produced an ROI of 21%.
    

[http://conversionxl.com/4-cases-where-short-home-pages-
outpe...](http://conversionxl.com/4-cases-where-short-home-pages-outperformed-
long-home-pages/)

    
    
      Short copy performs better when there is low perceived
      risk, low cost, and low commitment... when the customer 
      has an emotional, impulsive, and “want-oriented” 
      motivation. When you want people to take action that 
      doesn’t cost them dollars (email signups, free trial,
      clickthrough)
    

[http://blog.clicktale.com/2007/10/05/clicktale-scrolling-
res...](http://blog.clicktale.com/2007/10/05/clicktale-scrolling-research-
report-v20-part-1-visibility-and-scroll-reach/)

    
    
      Visitors are equally likely to scan the entire page no
      matter the page size.
    
      Below 540 pixels, both visitor attention and page exposure
      decline exponentially.

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webbruce
Another hot one growing is flat design which has little gradients and beveled
effects. I made a Dribbble bucket here to see examples:
<http://dribbble.com/bcackerman/buckets/82543-Flat>

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dmix
Android is utilizing this style on their new apps/menus. It looks great.

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rmrfrmrf
Google in general has been moving to this style. See also: Gmail, Google Docs

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milesokeefe
Their A/B Youtube redesign as well.

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Djonckheere
The last item cited, typography, could hardly be seen as a design 'trend'
itself. That's like saying a designer's use of colour or negative space are
regarded as stylistically in vogue today but may have been less prevalent or
even nonexistent in use at points in the past. Typography is a core element of
design. Period. It's not something that falls in and out of favor as a trend.

~~~
001sky
While this is true, I think you're missing the point. Typography as a
_primary_ graphic (al-la-street art / grafitti) is actually a distinct notion.
Seperate from idea from notion of typography as a digital variant of
_calligrophy_ , etc. The latter has always been an element of
publishing/desktop publishing and design (steve jobs, etc). The former has
not.

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Djonckheere
Regardless, typography as a primary graphic element——and to be clear, we are
talking about the Web——is not really a trend in my mind.

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sachinmonga
Missing the biggest one: 3 offset columns to display entries, a la Pinterest.

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dilipray
The first thing to remember is not to change the entire design at once.unless
it's totally horrible.

The prototype should never be better than than the final version because what
we try to give is awesome design which work awesome as a static version but
when it come to dynamic view developers keep changing things.that will
completely change everything you need to change accordingly

sometimes people think that single page apps are better.it's true in some
cases but not in all the cases

trello is the best example it can be a single page app but they dint.pjax is
what you can really use for dynamic design but still when it comes to micro-
blog or blog the ajax will just fine. but you should really try pjax technic
for mega apps.

i work on django so thats what i suggest for others using pjax is awesome

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jamesbritt
How did "2012" get in the post title? I noticed some of these trends are
carry-overs from past years (focus on simplicity, the use of large photo
backgrounds, the emphasis on typography, for example).

But in re-checking the site I didn't see any claim that these are somehow
trends of 2012; in fact, they say, "Let’s take a moment to look around some
trends we witnessed in last couple years."

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jordanmoore_
For teh SEOS.

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arrowgunz
It should be "JavaScript" not "Java Script" in the list of tags displayed on
top in the technical category.

Edit: Just correcting to help, not mocking.

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webskyter
Thnx. Just a typo :)

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hkon
Who are responsible for these trends? I'm sure many people have come up with
designs like this before it got trending? Apple?

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georgemcbay
Yes, every design trend can be traced straight back to Apple. Nobody who
doesn't work for Apple is capable of innovating new design trends. And after
they leave Apple they lose the Apple magic and are just non-innovative
designers again.

(/s)

On a more serious note, IMO Apple's wild ride into skeuomorphism is already
starting to look dated, IMO. Their web designs don't suffer from this as much
as their native apps do, but whenever I see a new app with a background that's
brushed chrome or leather or some form of wood grain, it looks a bit stale in
terms of design. Of course YMMV, this is a mostly subjective thing, but in
terms of overall software visual design, I'll take what MS is doing with Metro
or what Google has been doing with Android from ICS+ over the Apple texture-
everything approach any day.

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hkon
Yes, you mention apple, google and microsoft. I am under the impression that
designers work on accepted (by big/famous companies/personalities) designs
within the design community. Are these trends simply designers daring to be
original, or can we trace these new trending designs back to a single
influential source?

Or maybe does the design need to exist on said influential sources for
shotcallers to dare say OK ship it!

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dholowiski
The site seems to be down, does anyone have a mirror?

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photorized
502 Bad Gateway

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webskyter
fixed :)

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BaconJuice
very interesting, Thank you for sharing.

