#shopstar

Web trend: wide images (copywright merge.com)

As the end of 2013 is approaching fast we looked at Web Trends in 2014. Here's what we found: Mobile Mobile-first design: Your site needs to work well on a mobile device first, then on a desktop. Responsive: Use a responsive or adaptive design, so your website works great on all screen sizes. (Read more about this topic in a recent Forbes article).

Design Simplicity: Go for minimalistic, simplified look so the design doesn’t get in the way of, or overpower, your great content. White Space: Goes along with simplicity: White space can help emphasize content. No Flash: More modern design languages are HTML5 and CSS3. Flat Design: Flat design focuses on clean design and good use of colour and whitespace. Blocking: Blocks of content – think Pinterest. Big Images: Use of large images on websites is a trend at the moment – even having a large image in the background of a website. But they need to be top-quality! Colours: Using colour is big, apparently: subtle and calm colours, retro colours, even neon colours!. Web Fonts: We’re no longer limited to a couple of web-safe fonts. Think about using new web fonts like Google Fonts or Typekit. Content and Navigation Video: Video is still growing in importance.  A recent Pew report on online video says that 78% of online adults now watch or download video content. It’s an easy way to provide viewable content on your website. Social Media: Social media integration is important for all types of websites and organizations. It’s a great way to share content with customers in all the online “places”. Large Buttons: Websites are starting to use large, easily seen buttons. Make them big and bold! Vertical Scrolling: Think about using “sticky” navigation that glues itself to the top of the page, or social media sharing plugins that glue themselves to the side of a page. So, chat to us about a cost-effective re-design of your website in 2014. Speaking of design: we are really proud that our e-commerce platform Shopstar, launched only in May this year, has been selected as one of of the World Design Capital 2014 projects. In the last six months we have had fantastic feed-back from many users, designers and other partners and we are optimistic to significantly grow the Shopstar community next year. If you want to become part of this exciting journey and learn more about online selling come and talk to us.