While many website design trends are temporary affairs of the heart, a select few are natural evolutiosn of the industry. As more web-accessible devices are introduced to the market, designers must continue to adapt their workflow to meet the dynamic changes that are occuring in web design.Over the past few years, the general appearance. of websites has changed quite a bit for developers and designers. So let us take a look at the website design trends for 2015.

Exclusively Responsive

In 2015 we will finally see the shift from laptop based browsing to almost exclusive mobile browsing. If viewers cannot easily browse a website on their device, they are not going to return. Responsive design allows a particular website to detect the screen size it is being pulled up on, and automatically adjust to best fit that screen size.  This ensures that you are getting the best user experience possible; regardless of what screen size or device they are viewing your site

Flat Design

Say “goodbye” to outdated textures, awkward shadows, adios bubbles and gradients, 2015 will be all about beautiful, minimal flat design. As more and more website visits are occurring on hand-held devices, designers are intent on creating elements that appear smooth and minimalistic on those screens.

Fix Width Centered Layout

Over the last few years, many websites have used "banding," so that aspects like images and sections visually stretch the full width of a browser's viewport. Before this trend became popular, most sites were fix-width and centered in the page. Any user could tell where the site ended on either side. The fix-width trend is enjoying a modern revitalization. Instead of sites and their content sections expanding all the way to either side of the viewport, some sites are opting for a max-width to keep their content centered in the viewport. It provides a nice focus for the site content and bucks the width: 100 percent trend with sophistication

Removing Unnecessary Design Elements

In 2015 there is a good chance that many sites will begin to change their philosophy regarding design element density. Designers are beginning to eliminate many design decisions that most current websites have (i.e. lots of images, sophisticated layouts, background colors, etc.). Instead, many teams are opting for a clean and simple site design, which stands out amongst the crowd of design-heavy, image-heavy, and color-heavy sites.

Performance and Speed

As you know, some design trends are motivated by the need to make sites load faster and consume less bandwidth. Site designers and developers have become more aware of the weight of their sites and how their users interact with them. Responsive web design has shed some light on these concerns. Designers have been forced to pay close attention to the size of their files and sites, how fast these sites load on different speed networks, and mindful of users and their situations such as limited data plans. It will not come as a surprise that the need to be faster and perform better with no lag time will drive design decisions on many new websites launching in 2015.

Scrolling Over Click

2015 will showcase parallax scrolling & infinite scroll trends, creating a web product that is both beautiful and an immersive visual experience. Expect to see elegant websites that rely on a limited scrolling page and slide-out menus rather than bulky navigation. It’s more intuitive, easier to create, cuts down on load times and allows for more dynamic interaction to take place between the user and the website.

Your website is the primary marketing tool for your business. Before you implement that cool new design and start showcasing your products or services, you need to come up with a strategic plan of action for how your website is going to work for you – and more importantly, for your potential customers.

ImageWorks, LLC

If you partner with a company like Image Works LLC that specializes in both responsive web design and inbound marketing, you can merge your design and marketing goals together to create an appealing website that effectively draws in website traffic, converts leads into customers, and makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for and communicate with your company.