Web design used to be so much easier. We would design a website and people would view that design in pretty much the same way, i.e. on a desktop computer screen.

Nowadays, that’s all changed. More and more people are viewing websites on an iPad, mobile phone, laptop, or even a TV. These devices all have different screen sizes and shapes (portrait or landscape). This has forced us to completely change the way we think about design.

A standard, full size website does not perform well on a mobile device. They are hard to navigate and slow to load. This negatively affects sales conversion rates.

We have had to simplify our web design projects and make them fluid, so that they automatically adapt to these different devices. This approach is called responsive design.

Touchscreen

Another big game changer has been touchscreen. The fact that someone uses their finger, instead of a mouse, to use a website has brought about some big changes to web and mobile design. For example, buttons have to be bigger and navigation much simpler.

Touchscreen has also allowed for longer pages which people can scroll down with their finger, rather than breaking pages up with lots of ‘next page’ links.

TV

A lot has been talked about designing for smaller screens on mobiles, yet the future for the internet also lies with television. TV screens are much larger than computers, so websites will also have to scale up – as well as down – to fit this format.

Summary

Although all of these changes have made our designers' lives harder, it has brought about a lot of positive change. We have to make web design simpler and content more concise, which actually makes for a better website, no matter which device it is viewed on.

For more information about our web design services please contact Shaun on 01242 511912.