Zt-What to Expect in 2010: UX/UI Design Simplicity

In January of each year, we flip over the hourglass and, onceagain, we have everything in front of us. The new year gives us a cleanslate, a chance for change and encouragement to evolve the way we dothings. In the past, we’ve yielded to client and user requests to packour website designs full of unrelated features and countless pages ofduplicate information. The change we have been waiting for has come -our users have matured. 2010 is the year of Design Simplicity.

Clean and Simple

There are many design trends this year, however, I feel it is important to focus specifically on the movement of Design Simplicity.In fact, as the web evolves, it is our responsibility as designers tokeep the order of things. This means fewer pages, less clicks, lessclutter and more whitespace. In 2010, clean is King and our users areasking for it. I don’t blame them. With access to an increasing amountof information on the web everyday, our attention span is naturallydiminishing. Now, more than ever, design needs to engage the user,provide succinct information and allow them to go on their merry way.Who knows, maybe airlines and banks will even clean up their 1990sdesign.

Now Design Simplicity does not mean removing functionalityor access to information. This trend of simplicity is not as easy asreducing the elements and content in your user interface. To achievethe less is more effect, you have to develop a valuable user experienceby utilizing a creative toolset. Think of the iPhone - the greatestinnovation in modern mobile phones has only one button.

Single Page Websites

Each time a visitor clicks deeper into your site, a fraction oftheir interest dies. With the evolution of users, you can get to thepoint quickly. So in order to keep visitors’ attention, many designersare providing access to the core items needed to make an impressionfront and center. Think of the homepage as the main interface to all ofthe website’s content.When you start to layer some of the below itemson the list including sliders, modal boxes and toolbars, you canprovide pages of information without clicking off the page. iPhone App websites are a great example of single page websites in action.

Sliders

Sliders are a great way to provide indirect and precise contentthrough a simple and visual interface. Instead of giving users heavynavigational options and a smorgasbord of direct content, I expect tosee more content available indirectly with the use of slider anddecision tree logic on the homepage or main pages of the site. Thisprovides a more distinct website path and an appropriate experience foreach user type.

Modal boxes

Modal boxes, inherited from the dying desktop software standard,allow users to interact with the site without interrupting the flow oftheir experience. Why take the user to a separate page to login orwatch a video when you can pop it up instantly on the current layout?Modal boxes will continue to spread in usage and functionality. Expectto see modal boxes used for data input forms, lead generation, accountsettings and more.

Smart Navigation and Taskbars

Continuing on the path of desktop/web app convergence, smartnavigation and taskbars will dynamically shape the user experience.Smart navigation consolidates large categories of content and displaysmeta data to help determine the best path of navigation. Taskbars allowyou to seamlessly interact with web content and enable websites tolearn your preferences.

Reuters utilizes both tomaintain a simple but powerful interface. Mouse over one of the fournavigational items and get live market info or news before choosingyour next page. The taskbar allows you to save, watch or read specificcontent or topics like a feedreader.

Text Is The New Image

Clever use of typography will continue to gain momentum this year thanks to the original influence of designers like 37signals.The proper use of large and bold typography provides a clean and clearmessage and can, at times, be more compelling than imagery. In somecases, design will see subtle imagery supporting the typography. Whenyou really need to get your point across, you can’t beat words.

Larger Page Layouts

As monitor size and screen resolution increases so does the realestate for page layout design. This doesn’t mean that we should belaying claim to every available pixel out there. Instead it gives moreroom for whitespace so designs can present a clear message.

My Trend Wish List

Here are a few items I see when I look into my crystal ball. That doesn’t mean they will happen, but here’s to hoping.

Mobile Version Of Every Website

It’s great that today’s smartphones can view webpages in theirstandard web format, however, it’s just not an optimal experience formost websites due to screen size. I think all websites shouldauto-format based on the viewing device. Gmail, Facebook and Amazonhave already taken on this standard. There are great tools out theresuch as Mobify that enable easy andinexpensive ways to achieve this. I believe that this will lead to moredesign agencies specializing in only the mobile format.

eCommerce Tweaker Shopping

Live search and filtering powered by AJAX have been present for sometime in websites like kayak.com or Google Suggest. However, there arestill many verticals that have not yet adapted this intuitive selectionprocess. eCommerce websites should give users control of their shoppingexperience by allowing them to tweak their search results based ontheir preferences - color, price, social graph, size, features…etc.Right now, sites like Amazon force users to browse all results based oncategory or search term and then sort.They give users static resultsthat equire additional searching or copious browsing to refine. Thebrowsing aspect of an online store can be changed to a tweak byimplementing AJAX sliders, checkboxes and other filtering inputs thatenable the user to narrow down the results that suit them best. Userswould spend their time tweaking a large pool of products to find theone that fits all their criteria instead of having to examine eachproduct individually or use product comparison engines.

Smart Forms

Other than eCommerce sales, forms are the number one source of useraction on the web. The more intelligent and user-friendly forms become,the better results of their conversions. Forms will continue to be morecustomized to user input. Forms already feature a lot of on the flyvalidation to correct errors such as improperly formatted emailaddresses before submittal. I believe that forms should continue toevolve and adapt to user input. Expect to see forms add, change orremove fields based on certain types of input such as gender, age orpreference. This allows the website to better cater to the needs andexperience of the user and gather more appropriate information. Itshould also reduce form bounce rates as they are more customized to theuser type.

About the Guest Author

Chuck Longanecker is founder and CEO of digital-telepathy. To see his latest project, SlideDeck, please visit www.slidedeck.com.