I love one-pagers, and I hope the trend sticks…
Users short attention spans are no longer a disadvantage for web designers.
Trends…ehhh, makes me think of one word “overused;” but while some trends in the web design industry make me cringe (A few bad ones here) others make me glad I’m in an industry that constantly changes for the better. Users short attention spans are now being taken advantage of in the form of one-pagers, but its important to watch out for the good, bad, and beautiful trends of the one-pager design.
The Good
Bold colors, great font choices, simple and charismatic messages are all things one-pagers seem to harvest quite well. Not only do they sell your brand or services really well they are also fun to navigate. You get the best of both worlds when a one-pager is done correctly: large bold images, compelling type and copy, great colors and spacing of elements like logos, callouts and calls-to-actions. These are all things that simplify things for the user and ultimately sell your products or services.
There is also a form of story-telling and discovery that goes along with one-pagers which is where most great one-pagers flourish. The best thing about discovery is visitors can read it all at their own pace and leisure as the most pertinant information is within sight.
For UI/UX designers it really gets no better, a fun playground to flex your design muscles and front-end jQuery wizardry.
A few great one-pagers (mix of design agencies (of course) and selling of a product):
bakkenbaeck.com
squareup.com
hlkagency.com
hugeinc.com
invisionapp.com
http://www.google.com/landing/calendar/
The Bad
There are a few sites out there that have taken the parallax scrolling a bit too far. It’s almost like my finger is on scroll marathon and likely to get a cramp. Below are a few things that aren’t necessarily good practice when it comes to one-pagers.
Long winded — get to the point but don’t make it so long users forget half-way through.
Too many elements and transitions going on — Things are sliding in left and right bombarding the user with too much mess.
Similarly styled one-pagers — As with any trend, things become bland and overused. So many one-pagers have become very similar in styles.
The Beautiful
In closing, I’d like share a few great one-pager resources for inspiration…I visit these folks often when I’m in a rut…
land-book.com
onepagelove.com
awwwards.com
thebestdesigns.com
producthunt.com
So what are your thoughts?
Feel free to leave a note or share. ☺
Move forward and be great
