Web Trends in 2018
2017 saw so many changes to the web, it’s hard to keep up! These included mobile usage taking over desktop browsing and that’s set to continue in 2018. What other trends and technologies can we expect to see this year?
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) seem like mobile applications to their users, but they’re actually web pages or websites. The next step in the evolution of native apps to hybrids, these use service workers, which are scripts that work in the background. They give the app the ability to work offline; they enable near-instant loading (because much of the information is stored in the cache); and they can receive push notifications. Designer Frances Berriman and Google Chrome engineer Alex Russell coined the term “Progressive Web Apps” back in 2015, but since then, Firefox has also worked to include service worker technology in its browser. You may or may not be surprised to hear that Apple decided to not develop its Safari browser to allow for PWA until November 2017, when WebKit (the web browser engine that powers Safari) changed the status of service worker support to “In Development”. At the time of writing this blog, the status appears to be “Supported in Preview”.
Desktop Push notifications are becoming a popular way to allow users easily to subscribe to further information being sent to their browsers as notifications. On your first visit to a site, you are typically asked if you wish the site to block or allow notifications from that website. This is an option that can easily be changed without the need to send an email to unsubscribe. Desktop push notifications offer a less intrusive way of getting information to the end user than conventional digital marketing techniques (such as adverts or emails) — providing you don’t bombard them with notifications every hour! Over-communicating is likely to make the user just unsubscribe from the notification service. Sending information of value (such as traffic updates, sports scores or notifications about sales) directly to a user is popular, and the benefits are higher engagement without the cost of creating a mobile app to replace a website.
The 2017 trend of having a single scrollable website — a single-page website — will more than likely be continuing into 2018. This is where navigation is based on scrolling or using links that jump to a particular section rather than complex navigation or the deeply hidden menus of a conventional website. Single scrollable websites offer more focus on user experience design, and deliver a far superior product and experience for the customer. A single-page website can tell a story using acts or chapters, delivering content in a linear fashion in a way that creates a seamless experience, is intuitive and easy to digest.
More than ever before, UX (User Experience) design is critical to the success of your web, application or digital experience. When we think of motion design, we immediately think of fancy animations, making the UX more pleasant than perhaps a static presentation, but we don’t see any value beyond that. Motion UI (User Interface) employs design principles that offer a high degree of customisation that gives a developer or designer many options for crafting a stunning and highly functional site. Examples include easing in, overlay, cloning, obscuration, parallax, parenting, dimensionality and offset delay. Animation here is a tool to enhance the user experience, making it more intuitive and fluid. Its subtlety is far more effective than an element animated for the sake of it, or just for a wow factor. Linear motion, for example, where when a user closes a menu it just disappears, can be disorientating and jarring to the eye. If, by contrast, the menu animates and eases smoothly in a way that shows it closing, it’s not only easier on the eye and less distracting, but follows good UX design principles. Another example could be when a user selects a button to submit a form. Rather than having a pop-up window or another page as feedback that the submission was successful, the button shape might animate from a large rectangle to a circle, where the progress of the event could be represented by a coloured outline of the circle animating in a clockwise direction and, when the event has been completed, a check mark (tick) appearing in the circle. Motion UX, designed with UX in mind, can make a powerful contribution to the success of your product or service.
The demise of Flash Player: This may or may not come as a surprise but you won’t see very many web pages or sites with Flash Player integrated into them because Adobe has finally announced that they’re pulling the plug on this plugin. Steve Jobs announced in 2010 that it would not be running on any of Apple’s iPhones because it was too insecure, too resource-intensive and not fingertip-friendly. It turns out since then that there have been countless security issues with the player, and the recommendation now is that it be fully removed from your machine. Even Adobe has now said: “As open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past several years, most now provide many of the capabilities and functionalities that plugins pioneered, and [they] have become a viable alternative for content on the web.” The official year of death will be 2020 when Adobe will declare Flash Player end-of-life.
Flash Player: Born 1996, Died 2020, aged 24.
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