2015-2016 Web Trends and What’s Coming
With each passing year, website design keeps evolving and changing. Improving the end-user’s experience is always the goal, but the challenge for marketing professionals is sifting through all the trends and narrowing the search to a select few that will truly make a difference. I’ve narrowed that long list down to a few select ideas and trends that will help keep your audience engaged:
- Large Responsive Images – Place large scalable images and use as a background. Overlay the text and other elements on top of the image. It’s a great way to tell a story without having to inundate the page with text.
- Background Video – Engage the viewer immediately by using a video as your background. Tell your story without requiring the viewer to read any text. Videos are consumed easily and retention rates are exponentially higher than reading text.
- Hamburger Menus – It’s kind of like stacking an onion, pickle and lettuce on your burger. It’s essentially taking three or four menu lines and stacking them on top of one another rather than using the horizontal line approach. It simplifies the menus and provides a clear path to the content.
- Distinctive Typography – Over the past few years, Web designers have gained access to a large array of fonts that enable them to sculpt the end-user’s experience through the implementation of distinct, unique fonts. Always make sure the fonts you choose are supported, as the list grows longer and more diverse.
The bottom line is to incorporate these elements thoughtfully and think about how they might look on specific devices. You can’t implement every new trend, but choosing the right one can have a dramatic impact on both your company’s brand and your visitor’s experience.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.